


Atonement

by dudewhereismypie



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Amnesia, Angst, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Canon-Typical Violence, Healthy Dose of Pining (by which I mean kind of a lot), M/M, Medical Procedures/Experimentation, Sexy times (saxophone playing in the background), Sharing a Bed, Steve Rogers & Sharon Carter Friendship, sci-fi medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:19:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 32,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dudewhereismypie/pseuds/dudewhereismypie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James opens his home to Steve, who is coming back to the US after eight years living abroad with his adoptive father.  It’s clear from the start Steve isn't the same fourteen-year tall limbed boy James used to know, and it doesn’t take long for James to realize the changes aren’t just physical. Steve is hiding something, this much is clear, but James’ heart decided to oversee all suspicions when it decided to fall in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. SERENDIPITY

**Author's Note:**

> Hm, oh, wow, I can't believe I'm posting this. This is my first time in a Big Bang challenge and what a wild ride! I'm happy to be a part of it.  
> I have to thank [thestuckylibrary](thestuckylibrary.tumblr.com) mods for organizing such a great thing and being so good with us. I'm also very grateful to [king-of-moose](king-of-moose.tumblr.com) for making the art, for reading a very very horrible draft (I'm so sorry!) and for being so patient, talking to me and giving me tips. Thanks a lot, Gabbie! Also, I'd like to thank [benzydamine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/benzydamine/pseuds/benzydamine) for motivating me, for listening to my rambles and overall being awesome. I love you, you asshole.  
> See you guys later!

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

In a general manner that can be put as a rule, James sleeps six hours every night. It almost works like a watch with just a few minutes to spare, give or take. He doesn’t remember how it was before, as a child or as a teen, but he supposes his body got so used to the rhythm of college and part time jobs that now It doesn’t matter how early he goes to bed or how tired he is—  six hours later, he will open his eyes. It can get frustrating especially in the days he was supposed to sleep until late and ends up waking up in the dark because he fell asleep before 11 o’clock.

In his sleep, more often than not, James has flimsy frail dreams of things that seems to belong to another life, filled with faces that aren’t strange but not familiar either. His eyes feel like they're covered in scales blurring the sight, and time and space are filled with jell-o, making him slow and dense at every move, leaving a palpable second guess of reality. But they manage to reach something deep somehow, revolving inside his very core, bringing up shapeless things he can't name— and even if he doesn’t remember anything after waking up, they leave him with an uneasiness, an aftertaste of _wrong_ that he can only recover after minutes of distraction.

He sleeps lightly, as if his awareness could follow him deep, ready to pull him out at any give moment. It used to be a source of torture in his student days, when his roommate could try and be considerate but would wake James up just by walking around the room. This is behind now, gratefully, and James’ bedroom is adapted to the most deep quietness and dimness.

So he can’t really explain how he managed to sleep through a surprise that morning.

That morning James had fluttered his eyes open and his heart was beating fast. He didn’t know why, but didn’t linger on the feeling. It was like that on occasion, when he resurfaced from dreams he couldn't put down in words. He pulled deep breaths and blinked slowly, used to take some time to push the coil in his stomach away and feel normal again.

Even if he didn’t need an alarm to wake up he couldn’t avoid the habit of checking on his phone as soon as he felt less disturbed (the hour, the weather, emails— ), so he turned to grab it on the bedside table and froze midway. There was someone in his bed.

He saw a mop of blond hair appearing under a cocoon of blankets — his blankets — that molded a full formed someone, a big someone that was probably the source of a good part of the warmth that he felt all the way to his toes.

That was when he startled and sat on the bed, letting the sheets pool at his lap. He pulled his hair away from his face and the fuzzy haze of sleep and nightmares still seemed to slow down his neurons considerably. It took at least some seconds to gather his bearings and realize he really was in his room and Steve was curled asleep at his side.

His heart starts beating frantic all over again, now for a different reason.

 

 

* * *

 

 

James sips his second cup of coffee and squints at the open e-mail, thinking of how to start telling his client the concept he wanted for a conference room was so wrong in so many ways it wasn’t even funny. The mental list in his head grew up five items and he still has to check in in the office before the afternoon. He was distracted, however, by the sight of Steve in his peripheral vision, coming inside the kitchen fully dressed and sitting in front of him.

Not that Steve’s presence was a strange feature in the kitchen table, because in those five months since Steve came to live with him, they always had breakfast and dinner together. It became some sort of tradition and it was warming, if not soothing, to have that kind of routine with someone after being so long alone. He has a sensation deep in his chest that this is what having a home should be like — something to share, to build days in, not only a shelter and space to stuff his things. He doesn’t really know where that sensation comes from. It’s not as if he has much experience with this subject.

No, the distraction lies in the way Steve holds himself, shoulders hunched and head bowed down, as if trying to appear smaller. Let it be recorded that this is almost an impossible goal, but the picture of his dejection was convincing enough. Steve’s hands aren’t at sight but James knows he's fidgeting and worrying his fingers, twisting and squeezing them under the table — James had caught up on that nervous tell of Steve pretty quickly. Steve did that a lot in the beginning, in the first days where he seemed to follow James with big eyes and James pretended not to see it, but it had become a fairly sparse event. James liked to conclude that it meant Steve was more relaxed now.

He has a good hunch on what woke that behavior and he didn’t plan to make a big deal of it, not only for the fact that Steve already seems so embarrassed, but because, well, he doesn't feel really bothered by what happened. Not in a sense that Steve would expect, anyway. He can’t leave it at that, though, and ignore Steve’s visible discomfort.

“What’s up?” James asks and Steve looks up for a second or two before looking down again. His lips part twice before he can speak properly.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says, tone quiet, “For— going in your room and your bed.”

“Okay,” James puts his tone purposefully light and tries to make it a task of sound comforting, “You don’t have to be so nervous about it, I’m not upset.”

“It’s just,” Steve goes on, still with an edge of uneasiness despite James’ words, “I had a really bad dream and, and I woke up and I felt— things felt— I didn’t think I could be alone.” He finishes hurriedly, tripping over words as if he can't say what he's thinking all through the end. It's not as if Steve is a chatter box, but it had been a while since his speech was uncomfortable like that.

“It’s okay,” James repeats, this time firmer, but he sees no effect. He licks his lips and adds quickly what comes to mind, before he can back out, “If you feel bad you can come for me, you know that.”

“Still, I, I should have asked.”

“Water under the bridge.” With a sigh, James shakes his head. Steve can’t seem to let it go, so it’s best to give it time. “Go on, eat something, you’ll be late for your class.”

He receives silence, and then after a while, “Okay.” Steve finally opens himself in a smile, one of those small half-moons that seems like a private affair, something directed for James only. Then Steve pulls together a sandwich and gets up still eating, zipping up his hoodie while walking out of the kitchen. “See you at dinner. Have a good day!”

“Stay away from weird people!” James answers, loud enough to be heard from the living room. He listens a small laugh and the door closing.

Then he can turn to the knot in his stomach long enough to stash it deep away from the surface.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It all started when James’ phone rang. The winter seemed endless, even if it was already January, and going outside was deeply annoying. He was drowning in paperwork at the time and had one coffee too many, feeling jittery and twitchy, restless and tired at the same time. It wasn’t a first, but he'd never got used to it — the slippery thoughts, the attention span of a goldfish, the slight tremble running his muscles. Still, he couldn’t find that breaking point, that limit where coffee stopped making him functional and started making him feel like a zombie eel.

The phone rang and Rebecca was on the other side. He didn’t recognize her voice, even after she said it.

Rebecca, his sister, and he didn't even— She must be what? Older by almost five years, so at her mid thirties. And she’s more successful than James would ever dream to be. Eight years ago she moved away to live in France (or Germany, he can't recall anymore) and work in a big government laboratory that he doesn’t even know the name. It had been years since the last time they spoke, with her busy hours and the time-zone difference; years since he had heard her voice and he couldn't say how many, but it seemed like a lifetime. Long enough to forget, he guessed.

While the lack of recognition made James uneasy, he clinged to all the collected memories he had as if they would fix the sudden hole opening up in his chest and the thing coming inside of it clawing up his throat. It tasted like being a terrible brother, a terrible _person_ ; tasted like the anxiety of being lost and not knowing if it was real or a dream.

Throughout the time she talked he had breathed and clinged to anything he could think of— her dark hair like his own but clear amber eyes, her smaller frame that could loom over anyone, because she was so strong and smart; how she took care of him, how she ended up being much more of a mother than a sister, but still found time to study and work; her mentor, kind-eyed and calm, that made space for a boy barely out of school on his office; her voice and her tight hug when James went away for college.

He knew all of that with a certainness that grounded him, had it engraved somewhere deep, but even if years wasn’t that much of big load of time in the vastness of the universe, sometimes when James blinked it all seemed so distant he wasn’t sure he hadn't made it all up. It wasn’t a big shift, or a process even— it just struck him now and again out of nowhere, like an unexpected electric shock that left him buzzed and sore. He’d believe it and believe it and believe it, but then in the frame of a second he was filled with doubts.

They hold him awake every so often, those moments where nothing seems truly real, and there was a time he’d think of calling Rebecca and ask if things really happened, but he kept making excuses until the only number he had no long worked.

In this call, real as the feel of carpet caressing his bare feet, James' hands were getting sweaty hearing her voice tell him about how she was still settled in France (France, Paris, he tries not to forget) and still working at the same lab with Dr. Erskine. Rebecca held no accent in her words but they sounded warm, light and he felt his heart swell up bigger than its cage. She sounded happy, calm, and it was all that mattered.

He asked a few questions, almost timid, about what she liked, about how Dr. Erskine was. James appreciated him, and had inside his memory this image of a kind, gentle man, the type of person you would deem to calm down babies and sooth hysterical people. James could remember him as a comfortable companion to be with and as a dedicated father. He had an adopted son, Steve, a bright sunshine boy that became James’ friend despite the age gap of six years. There were images behind his eyelids of Steve laughing with him, reading with him, playing Mario Kart betting chocolate candy. The day Dr. Erskine moved his research, carrying Steve and Rebecca with him, Steve’s eyes had been swimming and he promised to send cards and letters that never came.

James had those pictures pouring out of his brain while Rebecca talked how Steve wanted to come back to the US, that he had been granted a scholarship to the NY Academy of Art to transfer his graduation. She was worried about him being alone after so many years living abroad and then she asked if Steve could stay there with James and he—  he felt his breath clogged up in his chest.

Rebecca went on, saying it was just until Steve could feel more confident around his new bearings, just until he could get used to a country he’d only been in as a kid and—  what could he say? He had space to spare, didn’t lead a wild life and there was a lingering sympathy for someone he shared a part of his life. He didn’t know exactly what made they be friends in the past, James just hoped Steve hadn’t changed much or enough to make them no longer get along. With a yes, they hung up, between promises of talking James didn’t know if could be taken seriously.

It took time until he was breathing normally again.

Then two days later James was in the ending process of clearing the spare room, earlier full of books and boxes and old things he should’ve long ago put in the trash, when he heard the buzz at his door. He opened it to find a tall, strong man, with a messy mop of blond hair falling in his forehead and a black scarf almost curled to his chin. He was all dressed as if preparing for a blizzard, like one of those people who hated cold and tried to bring as much warmth as they could with them.

“James Barnes?” He had asked almost out of breath, eyes big and blue, so blue, shinning anxiously. They didn’t seem to match the strength that the man’s shape held.

“That’s me.” James couldn’t help his eyes, wandering up and down that person, looking for the shadows of a boy in the man he had become. He found none. “Steve?”

“Yeah.” His answer came with a smile, rising and stretching with a happiness that almost became a laugh. It was a warm, beautiful thing to watch rising, and James felt his heart beat harder, his own smile growing ahead of his own will. He cleared his throat. “Yes, it’s me.”

That afternoon they talked over Chinese food, and Steve gave him a box that Rebecca had sent him. Inside of it James found books, a collection of postcards and a plain black pen-drive. He had tried to open that later, when the night stretched and he couldn’t sleep, but it asked a password James had no clue about. He then left it in a drawer and forgot about it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The thing is, they live well together. They fit in a thoughtless way James only noticed later, and it makes him constantly think about how Natasha says he only realizes things after they already happened. There was a typical awkward adjusting time when two people learned their way around each other, tested how to share their voices and rhythms and thoughts, but very short. After a few days they had stumbled upon a routine that fell naturally. Steve usually has classes at morning and, after, a part time job in a coffee shop not far from James’ house, and James has his work hours divided between meeting clients, going at the office and working at home. So while in the business hours they don't meet, mornings and nights are shared with a kind of familiarity James isn’t used to.

Steve likes to cook, and does most of the time, but hates doing dishes, so James usually cleans up in exchange for kind of amazing meals. He didn’t even know college kids could do good things in the kitchen— he didn’t in his college days and still doesn’t, for that matter, but is happy enough that Steve’s an exception. TV is the usual choice to unwind on weekdays and while James makes deliberate fun of Steve’s tastes for the food network and cartoons, it’s just for the sake of teasing. It’s— entertaining to watch him grumble to chef contestants, run to grab a piece of paper and scribble a recipe that is on, or shape up silent words with Disney films. Entertaining in a way that makes James forget what even he's supposed to be watching, that the Dumbo movie is too cruel for kids, and reality shows bore him to the bone; in a way that makes him occasionally forget that he’s staring and shouldn’t.

Sometimes (most of the times) James steals the paper and goes on hunts for ingredients, casually placing them in the kitchen as if he had them all along. Soon it became a kind of weekly game. Steve pretends to not notice, with sly smirks and side glances, making a show of being surprised to find something he needed to try a recipe _right there, Buck_. James tries not to laugh and mostly fails, and it’s so worth it to watch Steve’s glee and, well, eat good food, even if he once had to look for a chili powder in four supermarkets.

And it felt inevitable, looking back, and he— he should’ve known better, but he only knew when was too late, as typical of him. The weather turns and months roll and his projects blurs into a mass of coffee and papers, and James looks back and inside himself, and discovers things that shouldn’t be there. Steve— he thinks, he tries to justify it, he tells himself there is just _something_ about him. But isn’t that always how it goes? There’s just something about that someone and you feel that pull in your gut and it gets stronger and stronger until you don’t know if you can resist any longer.

He’s got it bad, whatever it is.

And he thinks Steve is starting to notice that, because they touch more often now, linger with it, hands on shoulders or backs, bumping together in the kitchen, pressed close in the couch as though it’s smaller than it really is. Because there are moments when Steve would look at him and it held an intensity almost breath-catching, as if they’re constantly teetering on the edge of something.

And now more often than not, Steve will come to his bed, and they’ll lie close together talking in quiet tones, as if sharing secrets from the rest of the world’s noises until one of them falls asleep. Steve lies with him in the dark and in the brink of his sleep it’s easy to pretend, it’s easy to be so still James can feel his slim fingers in his hair, ever so softly.

Nothing more happens, really, and while it's easy to fill his head with images that shouldn’t exist, it's enough. Because maybe Steve had noticed, but his response wasn’t a yes and James might just reading too much into it. And even if he has to repeat in his head that Steve doesn’t see him like that (and repeat it, repeat it, repeat it), it’s enough. It's— it’s good. It fills James with a contentment he’s rarely known.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It isn’t a surprise anymore to wake up and see Steve curled at James’ side, radiating warmth and soft sleepy sounds. James can’t see the harm in it, more so because, yes, it’s something intimate, but not in the way people are used to refer about intimacy. Not in a— a dirt way. And Steve seemed— relaxed, happy. How can he find anything wrong with that? With how Steve blinks slowly and repeatedly in a halo of messy hair, like a rumpled lazy cat that is surprised it’s morning already; with how Steve smiles, one of those small ones, as he looks to the side and see James awake; with the murmured good mornings and the brief touch of a hand before he gets up. He can’t, or doesn’t want to.

James also can’t deny how the pull towards Steve is getting bigger and bigger. He can’t lie to himself _that_ bad, when he catches thoughts and wants that sweep him off his feet— wishes of just a little more; more touch, more skin, more guts to close the distance and find Steve’s lips.

His crazy internal clock of sleep has now a new part, a part where he wakes up and just looks at Steve. In those small hours, in the secrecy of a bubble with no witnesses to account for, he lets himself think about how beautiful Steve really is— from the softness of long lashes resting against pale cheeks and delicacy of his cupid’s bow, to the sculpture of his jaw and nose so obviously masculine, contrasting in a way that really just makes him look like one of those famous Greek statues. Then there’s James’ favorite things: the floppy boyish strands of hair falling around, the discrete freckles dusting the skin, the mole close to his right eye and the now and then nose twitch, as if there was an invisible fly meandering around. It's like flipping a switch in perspective, not in the sense he’s seeing something that wasn’t already there, but as if he didn’t let it sink in before, didn’t allow it to grow and spread inside his chest.

It’d feel creepier if he got caught, but as it is, he— he says, just this time, just one more minute, just for a little while— and it stays like that. He won’t make any steps further and risk fucking it all up, doesn’t even think about doing so. What if Steve feels he has to reciprocate things just because James is, in a way, helping him? What if Steve does it because he feels like he owes James somehow? He doesn’t want it like that, doesn’t even like to wander on the possibility, and he— he says he’ll stop, it’ll stop, it won’t be forever— but then Steve sneaks into his room and bundles himself inside the duvet and more often than not, when James wakes up, Steve is leaning against him, angles slotting together easily, patches of skin mingling and— And when Steve opens his eyes he smiles as if there was no other place he’d rather be. So he stays still and dream on.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Of course,” Natasha’s voice is suddenly there on James’ left, filled with clear amusement, “anyone would find suspicious a college boy sleeping in your bed. I don’t.”

James turns his chair to the window of his home office, where Natasha is leaning in its frame, completely relaxed as if she didn’t just jumped in through the opening. “I have a door, you know.” he says, “And you have the key.”

It’s useless to try, but he does it anyway. James lost the count of how many times he tried to make Natasha visit him like a normal person and not lurk around as a crazy stalker. Come to think of it, he should give up. He would bet that half of the fun for Natasha was to startle and/or catch him doing something that would guarantee months of teasing. James can’t find in him to be angry at that, though. She has a free pass to come as she pleases but she respects James where it matters — she knows him well enough to know where it matters. She has unorthodox methods of checking on him, but he knows she cares deeply.

He feels like a highschool kid saying it, but Natasha is his best friend, there’s no other way to put it. She is, and had been since college, where they met during freshman year. James was looking for jobs inside the campus at the time, and Natasha worked at the library. He went there thinking he’d never get a chance, not with how many people wanted to work there, but she took pity on his sad miserable face (her words) and helped him get a spot. The hours were good and as a plus he could study some between the slower parts of the day.

Later, Natasha boosted his choice to pick interior architecture for a major; later still, she encouraged him to leave the library and pursue internships; and much later encouraged James to find his own place after paying most of his students debts. Natasha’s the most adjusted person he’d ever known in his life and this kind of thing ends up rubbing off on you a little, even if at the same time it’s frightening to compare her to the kind of mess he is. She had majored in criminal psych and while she smirked in answer to questions about her job, he was 65% sure it was FBI. Or CIA. Or something like that.

“You even traded your bed for a king size.” Natasha goes on, not even acknowledging he spoke. She isn’t even smiling, but he can hear the laughter in her voice.

“I wanted a bigger bed anyway,” he shrugs, refusing to be intimidated by her teasing, and turns back his chair to his table, work and, yes, coffee.

“Yes,” she nods, he can see it by the corner of his sight, with an exaggerated fake sweetness in her tone that makes his eyes roll, “to have space for Steve.”

“Do you have a point or are you just trying to be annoying?”

“Oh, come on, James,” she comes closer to grab his cup and sip at his coffee, his coffee, and the glare he sends to that scene just lightens up more the amusement in her eyes, “I like Steve more than your ex, anyway. That guy was a dick.”

“It’s not that,” James feels the urge to clear it, maybe because he wants it to be _that,_ but the truth is, it really isn’t. And he sighs, rubbing his face, “Jesus, Steve’s just—  he’s feeling alone.”

“Huh,” she sets the cup down and makes herself comfortable sitting on the table right beside it, smashing a couple of papers he pulls away. “If you’re being that obtuse, it’s good I didn’t met him yet.”

“Shut up,” he turns the chair a little more, trying to block the view of Natasha sitting right by his side. It’s as childish as one would guess, but and old resource of his to try and ignore Natasha piercing a hole through his skull—  that usually fails, “And stop breaking into my house.”

“No.”

“Get out,” he rolls his eyes again and tightens his lips, trying to mask his smile for a second, “I have to prepare for a meeting.”

“I’ll bring you vodka.” James then receives a pat in his head, feeling much like a puppy that had a promise of a treat if behaved, and doesn’t look to see Natasha sneaking out of where she came in silently.

“Obtuse—  I’m not—  pff.” He mumbles to no one, and glares at the cursor blinking over his finished presentation. The frustration and anxiety in him are bubbling fiercely, stirring his guts in whirls, and he doesn’t know how to deal with the confusion scratching his mind.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Buck,” The awareness of James’s body comes with a whisper. First sheets, then taste, then— regret. His head is pounding and everything hurts. He knows it’s Steve calling him, the only person that had gave him a nickname as if he’s fifteen, but still refuses to open his eyes. “Hey, Bucky…”

The bed dips at James’ side and his senses are filled with the smell of fresh shower, sweet and warm. The dizziness feels a little easier to bear for a second and James, he’s weak, there’s no lie, because he stays there and inhales deeply the scent circling Steve.

God, he should learn once for all and never play drink games with Natasha again.

He opens just one eye, then two, to find Steve sitting in his bed. As James knew he’d be, Steve is looking down at him expectantly, but, as he didn’t knew, he has only jeans hanging over slim hips and a naked chest a little pink, like a blush had spread gently under his skin. James thinks about drawing a thousand of shapes on the freckles in Steve’s shoulder, a thousand more if he could—

“Mmyeah?” James mumbles and promptly covers his face with a hand, trying to hide for a little while. “Ugh.”

“Sorry to wake you.” Steve does sound sorry. James isn’t angry anyway. “My shirts are all washing. Can I borrow one of yours?”

James grumbles what he thinks is an acceptable agreement and, when he feels Steve’s weight leaving the bed, he turns to lie on his side and watch Steve opening one of the drawers. The sun hurts his eyes, but it also curls over Steve’s back and claws up his head, making him glow in a halo of gold and warmth. It’s— it's so beautiful, and James must still be drunk because can’t stop looking.

“That okay?” Steve asks, showing James a shirt that once upon a time was black, the cover of Metallica’s Master of Puppets faded. It’s one of his favorites but he nods anyways, his stubble scratching the pillow. The Fall seems to be coming later this year and Steve will probably wear nothing else, stuck his jacket inside his backpack just in case and—

He still can’t look away.

Steve pulls the shirt over his head, fills it and pats it over his chest, straightening the soft  fabric. It's worn enough that fits him loosely, but it makes him look good, softer, lovely. His hair is now sticking up every which way, messy and fluffy. James’ hand itches with the sudden urge to rearrange it. Jesus, what’s wrong with him?

“You want some water? Coffee?” Steve asks, the concern subtle but still there to be seen, because he’s goddamn transparent.

“Yeah, both.” James sighs. He stares at Steve’s retreating back, tries to pull it all away and conforms himself on the fatality of forgetting to do so. He closes his eyes.

Next thing he knows, in a time that he lost notion of, Steve returns, balancing a cup in each hand. He puts them over the bedside table and only then looks at James, still watching, still dazed. “I’m going to work. I’ll bring dinner later, don’t order anything.”

“‘m not leavin’ th’s bed.” He mumbles, blinking slowly.

  
Steve laughs a quiet thing in his way out and James can’t help but smile. He closes his eyes again and clings to the lingering sound and smell Steve leaves in his wake.

 

 

 


	2. EMPTY SPACES

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

Steve stops his bike with one foot on the street to make balance, and hops off the seat. He likes the freedom and facility of it, much better than public transportation or walking, but he misses his motorcycle. He misses the weight, the vibrations of it coming alive, and its smooth shapes; he misses how fast he could go and have the wind and street lights fusing together. But it’s not as if he can use it nowadays, so he left it behind, as he did with many other things.

There isn’t a parking lot or a rack nearby, so he finds an unused bench and locks the bike beside it, counting on the fact that he won’t take long to come back. The park is small, more like a garden between two buildings, with just some patches of grass with seats and trees. But it leads out to a busy street when he walks towards its mouth and he already can see Sharon crossing the way towards him, hand circling a cup of something that’s probably coffee and shifting in calm steps.

“Sharon.” Steve says and watches her fine smile.

“Good to go?” Sharon asks, always one to get straight to the point. She goes on at Steve’s nod, “I’ll be waiting, then.”

Steve nods again, not seeing much he could say. For a second he watches Sharon making her way towards a bench, drinking calmly from her cup. He has a deep swell of gratitude, because, well, there’s nothing in it for her from breaking so many rules, and he vows again to be careful, to not to make things harder or mess it all up. She was his first friend after a long time being alone, but more than that she’s a good friend, the best anyone could have.

He takes a deep breath and crosses the walkway, the street, and turns around the block. On the first floor of a business building he finds the café, and foregoes making an order to walk straight to the tables. The one he’s supposed to be is easy to find, having a man with matching description sitting at the corner and drinking something, a Beckett book and a pack of cigars resting over the table.

It’s a simple thing, making it as a retrieval of a book, and Steve sits, offering a smile and pleasantries before grabbing it from the table. He refuses a smoke, tries not to show his suffering with small talk, and after the count of some minutes the man nods and they get up, making their way outside. Steve supposes there’s no not-awkward way to say goodbye to a stranger you’re pretending to know, but they settle on a shake of hands and Steve makes his way back to the park.

He finds Sharon texting with frightening speed and the cup squeezed between her knees. She doesn’t look up when he sits beside her right away, but he waits a few seconds and she turns, palm stretched up, asking for the book. Steve gently lies it on top of her hand.

“Anything else?” Steve asks, watching Sharon put it inside her bag

“No, he saw you, he’ll put it in the report.”

“Okay,” he says, and licks his lips, forces his fingers to stop fidgeting. “Thanks again, for covering for me,” he repeats the phrase he always says these days, because he’s not good with improvised feelings talk. In fact he has to train phrases inside his head just to push them out of his mouth right.

“Yes, you already said that, just...” She stops. Sharon eyes him, long enough that he glances back with a furrow between his brows. He swallows the urge to ask _what?_ and has a reward not much later when she asks quietly, in a way that cracks a little her professional stance,  “Have you found what you were looking for?”

“Oh,” he blinks, a little surprised, “Not yet.”

“Too bad,” Sharon then sighs and gets up, leaving a light pat on Steve’s shoulder. “Take care.” She throws over her shoulder and he stays watching the street long after she’s already gone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Your boy is working hard.” Natasha stretches her legs over the bed, kicking James in the process. And it seems like that was her main goal all along, because after she startles him again she stops. “And here you are,” _Here_ , she says, spread on the bed and pretending he can take a nap when they both now he can’t. She clicks her tongue between her teeth in a disapproving sound.

“It’s fucking Saturday. I’m a grown man.” He mumbles, then later feels that justifying it makes him look more like a whiny teenager. “Fuck off.” He decides.

“I saw him with a girl. A _cute_ girl.” She repeats as if he hadn’t listened the first time, ten minutes ago when he was trying to cultivate laziness and pretending his stomach didn’t fall to the floor, that there wasn’t a cold nausea climbing up the back of his throat.

“He can date anyone he wants. Stop fucking kicking me.”

“Mm,” James isn’t looking, with half his face smashed against the pillow and other half closed in denial, but he can picture the arch of Natasha’s eyebrow. “He met with an older man after. Are you sure he’s not a rent boy?”

“‘The hell are you talking about?” James eyes open and he’s suddenly very awake, turning his face towards Natasha and ignoring the crick in his neck with how quick he moves. Her voice is playful, and while she often talks seriously in joking tones, he’s almost sure this time is just a lure to catch his attention, because— well, because he’s stupid, is all, and he made the mistake to share his concerns (concerns, _not_ suspicions) about Steve. It’s not that— that he sees something wrong exactly, but something just doesn’t _fit_.

It’s like he’s a kid constantly trying to push the square shape inside the lozenge place because in certain angles they kind of look alike, but if you consider them closer, they’re actually different. It’s just, small things, you know? Like the two or three times Steve forgot the name of the place he works; that one time James was just coming home to get some papers and saw Steve going in another direction; how despite James’ expectations of his experience in college, there’s rarely things in progress for Steve’s classes, but at the same time Steve doesn’t behave as irresponsible and talks about good grades; or how he doesn’t says a lot about any of it, always without time, a little rushed and disheveled. Like— like Natasha saying she went to the coffee shop and never saw Steve there.

And to be honest James only talked about it with Natasha in the hope she would dismiss it all as his own special brand of paranoia, except— except she didn’t. And it’s a strange thing to have her agreeing with him in this instance. Natasha has much more clear-eyes for people behavior than he has, it’s something he just got used to, and it's a little weird to think he isn't just spinning himself up as usual.

“Wasn’t he supposed to be working?” she adds.

 _Yes, he was_ , but he only answers inside his head. In real life James tries to glare at Natasha. He doesn’t like thinking Steve is lying to him, doesn’t like that she thinks Steve is, and that now she set as a mission to prove it. He just— he just wishes he had never mentioned it. He can’t help the defensive streak when it comes to Steve.  “Why are you following him?”

“He was in a very suspect place this week, at the same time he was supposed to be in class.” She says, completely ignoring his question in favor of poking more at the sore spot. She leans forward, enough to lock her eyes with his and he has an urge to escape and stuff his face in the pillow again, but feels like he can’t. Her gaze is telling him _do something about it_ and he doesn’t know what, can’t even look at it without being completely lost. “There’s something strange going on with him, James.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The thing is— it gets worse. It’s as if after having Natasha fattening up the bug behind James’ ear he can’t think about anything else, as if somehow having the situation stretched by someone he values the opinion made it more real. Well, not as if. It’s exactly like that and he just— just doesn’t like admitting it.

The absence of doubts about Natasha’s suspicions (not his, okay?) would never not exist, because he’s a dumb bastard and he’d always have hope, would always think of another explanation that didn’t involve Steve being a liar and doing wrong things. But while he’d never believe in it completely, not unless Steve admitted to his face, there was no way of stopping the nagging inside his head, the constant buzz at the back of thoughts.

James is really trying not to act paranoid about it, but it's hard when the source of his concerns had carved a spot so deep inside him. As much as he worried, though, he wasn’t going to start tracking Steve’s steps or making attempts to pry on his things. That usually has the opposite effect of helping and he doesn’t want to play with the chance that Steve could see him as an enemy, someone he can’t trust. No, James has to wait, be there, make sure Steve knows he's safe to talk with him, that he’d listen and be by his side.

But he should have known, thinking back, that Natasha wouldn’t share the same approach, that when she asked to meet him midway across the town, something was out of place.

“Steve?” James calls aloud to no one, because in the second he looked down to his phone to text Natasha and up again, Steve was there.

It’s well past dawn, and he'd already wrapped up things at the office when Natasha’s message came, asking to eat at one of those small Thai places she seems to find like magic. The street’s full of people and sounds and lights but he sees him— the broad back, the blond cowlick at his nape— he sees clearly Steve coming out of a dollar store of oriental good-luck charms and walk through the pedestrians and carts of food and— and of course James follows him. He doesn’t even notice when his feet start moving.

He comes after Steve in a hurry, eyes glued and heart beating fast, bumping with people and mumbling halfhearted excuses. But he does so expecting to just reach him and— and not be him after all. He pictures the person turning around after a touch on his back and it wouldn't be Steve, and he'd apologize and conclude there was someone living in this city that was very much alike Steve, but i wasn’t Steve— the Steve that said he’d be late because he’d finishing an assignment in the college’s studio.

But it is. James reaches Steve when he stops at the crosswalk and he calls him again, watching his shoulder tense. Then Steve turns, eyes round big and surprise bleeding through his face.

“Bucky?” he asks, as if he can’t quite believe who’s in front of him, his voice a tad breathless of something that wasn’t exertion, like all the air in his lungs had been punched out.

“Hey,” James swallows dry, giving a little winded smile, “What are you doing?” he asks, trying to not sound like he’s accusing Steve of something because— because he isn’t. He aims to sound just confused and it isn’t that hard, with what he feels, startled and a little bit frightened.

“I was just,” Steve stops, licks his lips and shakes his head as if shooing a thought away. He looks around before speaking again, “What are you doing here?”

“My friend asked me to-” James starts, but doesn’t finish it, instead trailing off with a frown. He approaches Steve, a pit in his stomach. There's something very weird in the way Steve doesn't stop looking at the expanse of street surrounding them, as if waiting for someone to appear suddenly and get a jump on him. “I thought you were at school.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, almost dismissively, “Yeah, I was just, I’m going home now,” he comes closer and gets a hold of James’ arm, right above his pulse point. He can feel Steve’s hand is a little sweaty and cold, but it’s not something very alarming, not in the whole scheme of strangeness going around what’s happening. “Let’s go, yeah?”

“What?” he asks, brows furrowing, but it’s kind of useless because Steve is pulling him through the flux of people. His grip isn’t very tight but it’s insisting, and James thinks about resisting for a moment, but he also really doesn’t want to stay and talk about things in the middle of the street.  “Steve,” he starts.

“I promise I’ll explain, okay?” Steve interrupts him, not overly rude, but with a hint of panic creeping in his voice. “Let’s just go.” he asks, almost pleads, and James looks at him two seconds longer before nodding.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve’s wearing James’ shirt again, one of those shirts James doesn’t use much and keeps forgetting he has. He’s constantly alternating between formal clothes for work and lazy baggy things at home, and he has little opportunity to use anything in the middle. It’s a red henley this time, long sleeves pushed up, stretched nicely over his shoulders, and Steve has the neck of it open, showing when he swallows hard. He’s looking down, and James knows he’s staring at his own hands fidgeting with the same nervous energy that curls all around his body.

“This friend of mine told me about this job.” Steve says, quietly, after a minute of stretched silence that James hadn’t feel compelled to break, “I have to deliver things and they pay me good.”

“It was your job to drink coffee with a guy?” The question slips before James knows and Steve looks up sharply, with perplexity clear in his face. For a second he articulates and James thinks he’ll ask, he’ll want to know how James knows that, but the question never comes.

Steve lets out his breath slowly and nods, instead. “Yes. It was just coffee, really.”

“Steve,” James starts, and stops, lost. He drags his hands through his face, pushes his hair back, trying to maintain the lid on the dread clawing at his guts and making his blood run cold. This is so out of his depth it isn’t even funny. “I can’t tell you what to do, okay? You’re an adult and all that, but, Steve... this,” he stops, shakes his head, tries not to follow the tragic trains of thoughts inside his head, of Steve being hurt, of Steve being trapped and disappearing and— “This sounds like something that would end bad. It sounds dangerous.”

“I just...” he looks away, shifts uncomfortably, “The scholarship doesn’t pay for stuff I need, like the textbooks or art supplies and I don’t want to be a burden.”

“There’s other ways you can-” the words then get clogged on his throat because of the sudden thought spreading over his senses, and it comes like someone had thrown a bucket of ice on him. Steve may be only living with him because he had no other choice and that’s, that’s— “I can help you, if you want to. I didn’t know, Jesus, I can- It, it won’t be a burden, I swear, you can even look at it as a loan or something, and have your things, your place, I-"

“No!” Steve cuts in Bucky’s babble, voice rising with a kind of alarm that wasn’t there before, “No, Bucky, you got it wrong, it’s not like that,” he says, tone going down, but still urgent.

“Maybe you think you have to live with me, because of Becca. But-”

“Bucky,” Steve cuts him again and reaches quickly, his hand feeling clammy and a little rough when he hold James’ own, resting on the couch between them. James doesn't think Steve stopped being nervous since they were on the street. “I want to be here, with you.”

Steve is looking at him, not blinking, suspended, entirely focused, and there’s an abrupt change in the air, filling the space with a thick, charged atmosphere. The weight on the blue eyes and the eagerness of Steve’s actions and voice made James gulp down on whys— why would Steve hide something like that, lie to him like that; why Steve would act the way he does, pulling James closer and closer only to leave something like that as a secret.

James takes too long to answer, looking at their joined hands, and he can feel Steve growing restless, pulling his touch away. “I’ll go if you want me to.” He says, quietly, as if he was realizing this was a lure to kick him out. And James wants to laugh at that, specially at himself, at how Steve's so far off the mark, but he suddenly feels too sad and tired, dry.

“Do you usually sleep on people’s bed?” He meant to say _no, don’t go_ or _of course I want you here_ but the question came out before James knows, blurted in the spin inside his head, in a whisper that maybe has a hidden wish of not being heard. He almost regrets it with the visible flinch of Steve’s shoulder, but he can’t take it back.

“No,” Steve says, shoulders tense.

James searches in Steve’s face for something else, something that can tell him he isn’t going crazy. He takes a deep breath. “Okay.”

He can't tell if he found it or not.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve closes his bedroom door behind his back, and pushes his weight against it. His legs feels weak and he gives in the impulse of sliding down, sitting on the floor. He hugs his knees, hiding his face and breathing deeply, once, twice, three times. But it's long before he can feel in control again, before his fingers stop trembling. How could he be so careless? How in the hell he had slipped so badly that not only someone saw him, they somehow had told Bucky about it. Oh, Steve is plenty aware Bucky isn’t stupid. He just didn’t imagine Bucky would discover things so soon, that he would worry that way.

He still tastes the lingering fear in his tongue. The mere memory of Bucky right in front of him in the street, looking at him so lost and, God, what if someone had seen him? What if Bucky had been recognized, and worse, attacked? It had been so close, so close to losing him again.

When he finally feels his pieces in one, Steve reaches for the phone in his pocket and presses the numbers he has by memory. It takes three rings for Sharon it to pick up.

“There’s someone following me.” Steve says in lieu of a hello, and in his head he’s sure whomever they are, it isn’t Bucky. “We have to report and get a new location.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Things have been tense and strained lately. James doesn’t like it. Silences stretches long, uncomfortable, where it used to exist a kind of quiet company so comforting; awkward bumps take the place of flowing soft touches; mumbled excuses of being tired or something equally oafish slips more often then not, instead of a smooth pace of familiarity. Sometimes you just realize how things are easy when it all changes, he guesses. It had been almost a week and Steve had stopped coming to James’ bed.

Not that Steve has an obligation to do so, and James doesn't hold it against him, but— but he misses it, has a fist closing in his chest every time he thinks about it, about not having that anymore.

Sleep hadn’t been easy lately. He doesn’t like to think he got so used to sleep with Steve there that he can’t now that he isn’t, after years and years sleeping in his bed alone. But not thinking about it doesn’t change how he stays awake, swimming in the time and the dark and the things that went wrong.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Bucky,” Steve whispers, and James opens his eyes, breaking the lure of being asleep even if he really wasn’t. It's been almost two weeks and he has honestly started to think things couldn't be fixed anymore.

He now feels like something akin to hope when he turns to see Steve standing at the side of the bed. He can’t see much, with the darkness he imposes to his room and the lights all out in the rest of the house, but he can trace the outline of Steve’s frame, of his hands entwined at his front.

“Yeah?”

There’s a patch of silence and with the lack of noise James can hear Steve shuffling, his clothes murmuring.  “Can I lie down?” he asks, then, quietly, and it wakes something under James’ skin, leaves him buzzing and a little unbalanced.

“Yeah,” James croaks, and clear his throat a little. “Yeah,” he repeats and when Steve doesn’t move closer, he sits, letting the sheets pool at his hips. He hears Steve slow intake of breath and tries to read his face, but he can’t, can't see it very well. He thinks maybe Steve is waiting for him so he pulls the covers away and leaves a clear space to an obvious invitation.

Steve finally moves, kneeling over the bed and then lying down on his side. He sighs, a small thing, and James pulls the sheets over him, tucking the edge under Steve’s back, which makes him squirm and huff a quiet chuckle. James smiles, feeling a kind of satisfaction in his gut, some deep thing that purrs, and he lies down, front turned to Steve.

They just stay like that, like a pair of parenthesis, and James doesn’t know if Steve can see that his eyes are still open and he's just staring at Steve’s shape, listening to the rhythm of his breathing, but after all those days missing this he can’t relax completely because it feels like— like he’s there waiting for something. He doesn’t have a word or explanation for it, for this kind of sensation. He just has a sense of anticipation stirring his belly and knows something is coming even if can’t tell what.

“Are you asleep?” Steve says, voice very, very small in the veil of quiet.

And James can’t help but smile, humming softly before asking, “What’s on your mind?”

He hears Steve move, feels him coming closer, and watches the shadow of his arm cross the gap between their bodies. Steve’s hand is warm against James’ own, and he turns his fingers so Steve can touch palm to palm.  “Do you think it's possible,” Steve starts, and James has to strain his ears to listen, “to fall in love with someone, after living with them for a while?”

Time slows down for a bit. James feels kind of suspended and he hears a small _oh_ that he realizes is his own. He forgets about rationalizing for a second, forgets that— that he’s older, that Steve’s still in college and lives with him and that James is not supposed to trail this path; he forgets Natasha’s voice saying _there’s something strange going on with him_ , he— he holds Steve’s hand, squeezes it, hard, and feels his heart's beating wild as if it wants a way out.

“I,” James has to lick his lips, catch his breath, “I think it can be.” he manages, and his voice sounds strange to his own ears, hoarse and low. Steve’s hand then trails up his arm, his shoulder, slip up his face to rest over his cheek. He can feel little calluses against his skin and if it wasn’t for that, he’d think this is all too surreal to not be a dream. Because it’s all so intimate, so private, like they’ve been shifted to another universe where just the two of them exist.

Steve’s thumb brushes against James’ stubble for a bit, and then it stops, as if Steve had come to a decision and is now closing in, winning ground and— and James can feel Steve’s exhales against his mouth, his heat right against his body. James’ knees are weak even though he’s lying down and he’s sure Steve can feel the rush of blood that spreads up his cheeks against his hand. Steve keeps cupping his face like it’s something precious, and James wants to close the space and reach him, touch him, brush the strands of hair falling at the side of his face and trace his jawline, his cheekbone, his lips— but he feels frozen.

He’s so close, Jesus, so close, and— “Steve,” he says, _pleads_ , pressing his eyelids close together, hard, until he sees white spots. He realizes how he’s breathing deep and fast, chest moving in waves, and Steve stops.

“Do you not want me?” Steve whispers, voice small, and James knows right then, heart caving wild, anxiety and unknown things blowing out his breath— he knows the answer could never be no, that he can’t make himself say no. James licks his dry lips, opens his eyes and reaches to hold Steve’s free hand, gentle to pry open his fingers and slip his own alongside. Steve accepts his touch with delicacy but doesn’t react further.

He tries to not look at the shining glint of Steve’s eyes for too long, because he knows he won’t be able to think straight and he needs to do that now. It’s hard enough with Steve so close and James light-headed, feeling like a moth drawn to his light and ready to burn up.

And Steve, still waiting long after had passed the polite time for an answer, slides his hand from James’ cheek to his hair, brushing the messy fringe of dark-brown strands away from his forehead, tracing an eyebrow with his thumb. It seems like an action he didn’t thought about, so natural, and James feels something unlock inside his chest, like a pressure had come free. “You know I do,” He says, because somehow if Steve didn’t, James doesn’t think he'd be there, “but it’s not that simple.”

There’s a second and then, “Why?”

James takes a deep breath, his left hand absently smoothing the wrinkles from Steve’s shirt. He can feel the touch making his stomach muscles twitch and jump and he chances a look at Steve and sees that his eyes are wide, lips parted, and— something inside James stirs with pure desire, tall and growling. He pushes it away, trying to hold into the thought that they should talk this through. “You have to know that being with me is not a— a condition for you to stay here, that I don’t want you to do that because you feel pressured, and I— I won’t use this against you.”

“I never thought you would.” Steve says, too quick, firm. And— and James doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Okay.” James says in a wave of breath, almost inaudible. His strings feels stretched thin and he’s all spit and glue. He won’t last long.

As if noticing it, Steve rests his fingers entwined with the hair at James’ nape and presses a little, a lazy caress. He starts to lean closer again, and closer, and closer— a slow maddening thing that leaves James charged with electricity and fire, something that feels almost visible, currents running over him in the darkened room. Steve’s breathing fast too, James can feel it, chest pushing up against his, air colliding with his face. James closes his eyes and his throat works in a dry swallow, hand closing over Steve’s shirt tightly.

“Voila le portrait sans retouche," James hears as Steve caresses his hair, and he never had seen Steve talk French before, "de l'homme auquel j'appartiens.” Steve whispers, right against his mouth, and even if he doesn't know what it means James shivers all over, feels it running from the top of his spine, down to his hips, groin, toes. When Steve’s lips touches his, soft and a little chapped, he lets him have the reins with the small pecks that grows in a slow dance of nipping and licking. He feels his silky tongue outlining James’ mouth and then it slips inside and they're kissing, eager and deep.

It’s frightening and amazing how his whole existence, all his senses, suddenly become centered by that point of contact, as if this fills him and fills him, and it’s so big everything else can’t fit in his perceptions. He senses Steve’s fingers scratching softly his nape because it makes him shiver again, but isn’t aware of the small tremble in his muscles, the tension that would give hints of how much it’s hard to be still. If he was aware, he would know how close he is to lose it.

So it comes as a surprise, his hands desperate to touch everywhere, running over Steve’s sides, squeezing his hips and stopping there only to manhandle him on his back, to loom over him. Steve gasps, kiss breaking, and makes space for James' body between his legs, hands at his shoulders. James stands on his bent arms and looks at Steve, lips shining and a little breathless, immensely beautiful, but he can't resist going down for much longer, doesn't matter how fascinated he is by the sight, and kisses and kisses him. He loses grasp of everything else and pours all of him, taking his time to learn the shape of Steve’s mouth, the plush bow of his top lip, the taste of the slide and swirl of his tongue— It doesn’t take long for that inescapable heat build and ignite something in James’ chest, and it's seems unstoppable, immense, burning him whole and spreading through his veins.

As Steve hums and squirms and holds James tight, James can’t believe how someone like Steve would happen to him.

 

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

NA: Steve says _"There it is the unretouched portrait of the man to whom I belong"_ and it's from an Edith Piaf song because I'm the cheesiest cheese to ever cheese.


	3. FALLING

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

James wakes up, and it takes some time until the awareness arrives and he feels himself inside his body. His consciousness is coming much slower than usual, as if he had been dipped in a drugged sleep and his head is fighting against the fog. He exhales forcefully, leaving the air all out to sense his muscles awakening, working to pull more in, and he feels something moving right against the tip of his nose, tickling and— and that’s when James realizes he’s all wrapped up against Steve’s back.

He blinks in the morning dawn and can’t dare to move for a second. He doesn’t know how to name what he feels, knowing he woke up and none of what happened was a dream, that Steve wants him too, but he knows it fills him with such a powerful high he feels— he feels _alive._ He doesn’t know what time is it, doesn’t even care about it.

James can’t help it, moves his arm from the circle around Steve’s waist to trace out the long outline of Steve’s side, just to feel the slide of his warmth; he moves lightly, just the bare friction of his palm, up and down. He comes to a stop on Steve's hip and, not really wanting to start anything, just wanting to feel Steve’s skin, he puts only the fingertips inside Steve’s shirt, slowly and ever so soft. He hears Steve’s breath change, catching at first and then a long exhale, a bit shaky at the end. Then Steve reaches to hold James' hand, bringing it to his mouth and kissing the fingers, palm, his pulse.

“Why is it so fucking early?” James hears Steve’s whisper against his skin and can’t hold back his low raspy chuckle, ruffling the hairs on the back of Steve’s head again. His fingers slide over Steve’s lips, his chin, neck and down to his chest. James presses himself against Steve’s back, chest to thigh, and just like that Steve _melts_. James is so gone on him it’s not even funny, he— he’d give him anything, everything.

Steve is all soft and pliant, but still he moves in a lazy roll, brushes his ass right against James' groin and James feels like all air have left his lungs. It didn’t happen much beyond heated kissing and touching last night and he can’t say it didn’t took a tool on him; now he has all this desire accumulated, burning his insides, and it’s really, really easy to have him riled up and ready to go. He never had real difficulties on getting hard, but now it’s so easy he feels like a horny teenager. And Steve does it again, and again, and James groans, a deep guttural thing— just like that, they’re at it again.

His hand slips to get inside Steve’s shirt, and he spreads his palm big and rubs and presses and _feels_ ; Steve is so smooth and warm and the hairs on his chest are so good to touch. He stops just over Steve’s fast heartbeat and lets the tip of his fingers moving over a nipple that’s already up, and he shudders with the sound Steve makes. It seems to come from deep, deep inside. James’ mouth then kisses his nape, running his lips until he finds the spot right behind Steve’s ear. He feels Steve’s shiver like it’s happening on his own skin and he gasps with how Steve full undulates against him. He can’t help his hunger, and he sucks and licks and kisses Steve’s neck, open mouthed and eager, tasting him.

Steve leaves out a breathy groan and squirms and turns around, seeming anxious to reach James, but not doing so right away. He pushes his shirt up and wriggles to get it off, and then his hands are insistent to do the same to James’ own. James’ vision goes away for a second when the fabric passes up his head, and when it comes back Steve is smiling at him, a little breathless, pink cheeks and bright eyes. It seems like half of Steve's hair is falling down his forehead, so James reaches to push it back, ends up with both hands holding Steve’s face, and he doesn’t really realize it, but he’s pulling Steve to come closer, to his mouth. He kisses him, deep and good, for so long he can’t taste their morning breaths any longer.

Steve’s getting impatient, James knows it when he ruts his groin against his tight, searching friction. For a second James doesn’t even think about doing something to relieve him, only for how good it is to feel Steve so needy, to feel his hard bulge rubbing against his body. It wakes something deep in his guts, somethings that purrs pleased and excited, and he breaks the kiss, gasping, hand moving to grasp Steve’s ass. It fills his palm so good and he clutches it, squeezes. His mouth makes a trail to Steve’s ear and flicks his earlobe gently with his tongue, sucks it inside his mouth and lets his teeth scrape lightly. James hides his smile when he hears Steve’s moan and makes a path of wet kisses right under the curve of Steve’s jaw, never stopping pressing him against his front.

He honestly loses time after that, and can’t keep track of how they ended up naked, pants and underwear kicked out, legs tangled, his mouth on Steve’s throat and Steve’s hand on his hips. James manages to turn on his back and tug Steve on top of him, and it’s a brilliant idea because now Steve’s cock is rutting against the crease of his groin and James hears himself moan but doesn’t feel the moment it came out of his mouth. He moves against Steve, and they both make a slow rhythm, clutching to each other everywhere they can and having to break kisses on spans of gasps, but always coming back, like they’re on a cheesy rom-com movie or something.

Steve grinds harder and James senses his body arching up, head dropping back and hips pushing his cock against Steve’s, needing more and at the same time overwhelmed. He doesn’t think he’s felt this out of control with someone in bed since his first time. He had been holding Steve’s head, but he slides his touch over the expanse of Steve’s back, already a little sweaty, and he grips Steve's ass with both hands, pushing him against his cock. He swears out loud, because with his hands like that he can follow the movement of Steve’s hips, and it’s so hot and he can’t take the image of Steve moving exactly like that but being inside him and— and it’s making him a little crazy.  

“Bucky,” Steve calls right against his mouth, “Bucky,” he whispers and bends, his lips finding a way to James’ neck, pressing kisses.

“Yeah,” James says, except is more like a moan, “Yeah, I’m right here.” And Steve is licking and sucking and it’s so good, but when Steve reaches a hand between their bodies to grasp their cocks together he _sinks_ his teeth right where James’ shoulder meet his neck and James is— James is fucking _gone_.

“I want you, all of you, everything,” Steve says in his ear, a little winded and breath hot, voice buzzing through James’ body and going right under his skin, like the words wanted to be carved on his flesh forever. James isn’t a talker in bed, and hadn’t imagined Steve would talk like that, _be_ like that, demanding and so fucking sexy; but it turns him on so much it makes his head fuzzy.  “I want to hear you, see how good I can make you feel, watch you come,” And James groans, head going back, eyes closing, but Steve whispers, “No, look at me, look at me, please,” and James opens his eyes. Steve has an arm bent and his face is right above James’, hoovering, and like that he’s staring right into Steve’s eyes.

He feels his breath catching in his throat with the intensity of it and his lips move, but the sound coming out of it seems distant to his own perception. Steve’s pupils are big, eating the strings of green that he has around the sea of blue. Right then Steve’s hand moves faster around their cocks, mouth parted and brow furrowed, and James is barely able to focus, can feel the tightening in his groin, the pressure tripping the tip of the build on and he can’t stop it. Something shifts in Steve’s face when James starts to come, but he can’t know what it is, too deep in the rush of his orgasm. Then Steve _moans,_ loud, and it’s so hot it makes James shiver, breathing hard when he watches Steve come.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The relief of having those maddening tense days gone is like a bliss, but being allowed to touch Steve is— it’s like when you have some drinks and there’s that time frame where you’re light and excited and you feel so good and _alive_ , right before you get drunk and embarrass your existence; except he’s sober and he can’t seem to stop feeling like that, even if weeks had passed.

James works, he goes to the gym, he cleans the house and washes clothes, he works some more, he buys Natasha expensive coffee almost every day so he can distract her of teasing James' stupid smile (it mostly doesn’t work), he goes on grocery hunts of weird ingredients, he laughs at the messes of Chef contestants and eats a cheesecake so _good_ his eyes roll to the back of his head; he learns some lines of The Emperor’s New Groove and— and he can’t get enough of Steve.

Things are back to the familiarity they had before, but saying that nothing changed was a lie.  Before they wouldn’t touch with so much intent, they wouldn’t trade lazy good morning kisses; or lazy good night and mid-day kisses as well. James feels something loosen up in his chest, like a floodgate went down and now things are soaking him, flowing freely. He’s— he’s happy, so happy things changed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Aside the sound of TV making a mindless background noise, it’s very quiet in the living room. James is not keeping track of what Steve is watching, he’s just there because— because he didn’t feel like working in his home office, is all. He can concentrate just fine on the project he’s designing with Steve pressed up against him, hands moving through his hair.

Here and there, Steve moves to leave a kiss over James’ cheek, shoulder, neck, and— honestly, why he’d give this up to be alone in the office, pretending to work and thinking about the kisses he could be having? They’ve been doing this (dating?) for less than a month, but James has the lingering feeling of something being weird and amiss whenever he’s home with Steve and they’re not somehow together. Right there, with him, he feels warm and happy and good— good enough he doesn’t care it’s the third time the client asks for changes in the original plan they’d agreed on before.

Steve seems to get bored with whatever is on, though, because where James saw the screen of his laptop a second ago, now there’s a smiling face, haloed by messy blond hair. Steve is pretty respectful when James says he has work to do, and he does things like that to ask permission, to ask for James’ attention. He always waits to see how James will answer before doing anything; if James asks, he leaves him be, but if he doesn’t— well. James bends to find Steve’s lips while his fingers close the laptop lid blindly, and he keeps kissing even when he moves to leave the computer over the coffee table on the sofa’s side.

Steve leans into him, angling his head that little bit to reach deeper, and James lets him, craving his touch. With those long, sensitive fingers carding through his hair in a slow, soothing motion, James can’t suppress a shiver. Steve is almost on top of him now, and his body is in a long unbroken line against his, his mouth taking and taking and taking. It’s delicious.

“Steve,” James says, hoarse, and he doesn’t know exactly why, just feels the need to say his name. He’s lightheaded from the kiss and Steve, whose touch is a slow burn on his body. James kisses him again, maps out the contours of his plush mouth, licks and nips his lips until they’re damp and red. Steve slides with the rustle of clothes and his limber body is suddenly in James' lap, knees framing his hips, hands on his back and in his hair, nails scratching the scalp lightly. James feels it again, the need to have more, take more and never stop.

His left hand grasps the back of Steve's neck and the other runs its fingers over Steve’s face, his cheekbones, nose, forehead, jawline, lips. “You’re so beautiful,” James says in a breath, an awed whisper, “So good, you feel so good,” he mumbles, breathless, and it’s one of the things that changed a little— he now finds words slipping through his mouth, saying things before he’d have only inside his head. He doesn’t do it like Steve, can’t even imagine having that kind of smooth sexy talk, but he says what it comes, and Steve seems to like it, shivering and pressing his growing hard-on against James’ abs. James slides the hand up Steve’s head, holding him there by his hair only _this_ side of tight, and kisses him as if he can’t control it— which, really, honestly, he can’t.

He’s greedy, like he knew he’d be, and maneuvers his hands over Steve’s hips and then up to find skin, right under his clothes, wishing he wasn’t wearing anything because he just wants to touch everything _now_. Steve kisses him with that same urgency and James groans, shifts his hands to grab the back Steve’s thighs and tries not to lose his mind. He’s never been kissed like Steve kisses him— hell, he’s never had sex like this. Good sex, awesome sex, yes, but nothing like this, like— like everything is hot and bubbling and each kiss he receives feels like it’ll be his last. Like he’s starving for it, will die if he doesn’t get it. It should scare him, and he doesn’t know why it does not.

Steve grinds his hips against James and makes these noises in his throat that would probably be best for his sanity's sake if they weren’t allowed, little grunts and moans and stuttered gasps, and James echoes them— it’s all he can do, really— and pushes his hands to knead his ass, seeking more pressure, and Steve arches his spine like a satisfied feline.

He bends to put his mouth on the exposed line of Steve's neck, and licks a line right up his ear, sucking the soft spot behind the lobe. In that position, when Steve angles his head forward again, his mouth is so close to James' and he's now murmuring sweet, sexy things. He isn’t even sure Steve knows what he’s saying, but it goes to James' head like a rush of a drug.

He breathes all the way out, harsh and loud, and his hands are going on their own volition to Steve's pants, fumbling to pop the button, push the zipper, and he can’t be sure, because his face is still against Steve’s neck, but he thinks Steve is maybe holding his breath. James bites his throat and it's with little patience he starts to drag down jeans and underwear off Steve's hips. It doesn't work much, and he moves a hand to Steve's ass to haul him, making him kneel up on the couch, and finally pulls the clothes down.

Steve is looking down at him then, lips parted and eyes burning, hands on James' hair. It's so clear what he wants now he has James' face like that, so close to his cock and— James doesn't fight it, licks his lips and takes him into his mouth.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve admitted he went a little reckless at the beginning. He’s in a safe place, Sharon has his back, his contacts were presumed trustful. He thought things were going smoothly. And then he got caught by someone close enough to spill it to Bucky.

Well, he isn’t going to make the same mistake twice, and let himself be recognized on the top of being followed. But he also can’t exactly request gadgets since he- well, since he isn’t where he’s supposed to be, nor strictly doing what he’s supposed to do. So a higher caution to cover his tracks, thick squared glasses and a baseball cap will have to do. It’s also his luck that he’s on a motel room, shady enough he could enter without seeing anyone. Sometimes he hates the idea of hiding in plain sight.

“Three days from now, twenty-two hundred, East NY.” Holster says and slides a book over the bed. One that Steve knew has a hole to fit a very small pen-drive tucked in, with a lot of intel he doesn’t like to imagine what will happen if gets lost. Holster is a good informant, have been since before Steve had this job, and Steve knows this is the kind of important thing he’s not supposed to fuck up. The thing is, he has to bring it to his handler himself, and he doesn’t know where the Rumlow is now, because he’s crazy paranoid and changes locations so much; and the thing is, Sharon is out of town for two days and he was supposed to go with her, but she made a big deal of going alone and Steve meeting Holster, so she, again, found a way for Steve stay in the city without going against a direct order.

He doesn’t even know how thank her by now, can’t even begin to describe how much he owes her. And he feels useless, frustrated, because, what? He’s supposed to call her and ask how to proceed? He knows how to do his job, dammit. So he probed Holster a little, made a good talk, and now a call after, Steve has a place and a time.

“Thanks, man. I owe you one,” he says and can’t help his smile from stretching big, relieved, but he watches a glint of interest in Holster’s eyes, something Steve didn’t intend to provoke.

“Maybe you can buy me a drink?” Holster asks, mouth pulling up in one side. And Steve in maybe another occasion, in another reality he hadn’t found Bucky, he’d accept. Holster is handsome in a discreet way. He has kind eyes, crinkles around its ends that suggests big smiles and long laughs, the kind of smart mouth Steve appreciates, and the inconspicuous simplicity of his posture inspires a sense of comfort that relaxes people around him. Steve thinks this must be very helpful on Holster’s job.

“No, but thank you.” Steve says, “I,” and he grimaces and makes a big gest with a hand, one that conveys the idea of being in a complicated involvement with someone; not that he is. Steve does that just because he doesn’t want Holster to ask questions, doesn’t want to make any opening to a path that would connect to Bucky.

The man chuckles and shakes his head.  "If you change your mind..." Holster says, and then uses a sloppy salute to a silent farewell and leaves the room.

Steve just laughs, fishes his phone and looks at the time. He has to be there at least for a while and he doesn’t have much to do. He gets up and sheds his clothes, changing them to the ones he brought on his backpack. He then puts the book inside and the used outfit over it, and watches bad TV for a while. After twenty-five minutes he feels like he can’t watch more of a doctor wearing cowboy boots and getting slapped on the face, so he pulls his hood over his head and makes his way out by the parking lot.

He reaches a street full of bars with some movement despite being only five pm, and he keeps walking. He didn’t know how long he’d have to be gone, so he parked his bike in the first place he found with racks, which ended up being a park that is not very nearby. He’s just making a shortcut, walking between the space between two old buildings, when he sees two men coming at his left.

Steve looks at the cars parked on the street’s shoulder and sees on the window a reflection of a glint. It looks like a knife, but smaller, and he thinks he maybe, just maybe, is about to get mugged. Well, they could try. He could take them down easily, but attracting attention is in the very bottom of his list. He can not, however, let them take his backpack.

The solution, it seems, is to find a common ground.

He senses the approach, feels a hand on the strap around his shoulder, but instead of letting it go, Steve _pulls_ and uses the momentum to push the guy against the wall and kick him in the nuts. The guy falls groaning but his companion doesn’t hesitate to try and stab Steve; it’s slow enough that he gets away, but quick and sharp enough he feels it cut through the sleeve of his clothes and find his forearm. It’s very superficial, but blood resurfaces quick.

Steve punches him and the man stumblers, backs away but doesn’t give up, and Steve is enough frustrated to just stop holding back and beat the crap out of these guys when a voice shouts from the other side of the alley.

“Hey! Get the fuck off him!” The man comes in running and the thieves are spooked enough they take off, and Steve inhales, trying to calm himself down. He straightens his bag against his shoulder and  turns to the other men. He’s tall, dark hair buzzed short, wearing a combo of shirt and jacket that did not hid how big his muscles are. Well, there’s why the thieves ran.

“Thanks,” Steve says, sighing. He supposes it’s the polite thing to do, even if his irritation doesn’t let him see that now. “They surprised me.”

“You okay? Shit, you’re bleeding.” The guy produces a package with tissues from somewhere and in a second is right there, holding Steve’s arm stretched, pressing one over the cut. Steve flinches, fairly sure that this is way out of the common courtesy of respecting a stranger’s personal space and steps back.

“I’m fine.” He glares at the man, for good measure. “Thanks, but I should go.”

The man frowns, looking slightly out of place and worried. “You sure you don’t want to get help?”

“Yeah, it’s okay.” Steve says, already walking away. “But thanks again.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

James hates leaving wet clothes on the laundry basket, so he has a habit of doing laundry after working out. He just put things in the washer and makes a little naked trip towards the bathroom, and voilá, problem solved. He’s on his way to do just that, gathering pieces together to fill a good load, and he always puts Steve’s things in the middle of it, because it’s not as if it changes that much the amount of work he has to do.

He’s still sweaty, body running hot and clothes clinging to his skin, but when he grabs a plastic bag with a coat blotchy in red, it’s like someone just pushed him inside an ice bath. James grabs the coat, looks a little closer and, yeah, he’s not a specialist but it definitely looks like dried blood. 

“Jesus,” he mumbles, heart racing. His mind runs through the worst possibilities, and the very first of them all is Steve still doing those “delivers” he said he’d stop doing and being attacked. The possibility of Steve lying to him again so easily, and being in that kind of danger of getting hurt—  it tears something in his chest and he— okay, he can’t get ahead of himself. He has to find Steve and ask him what's that about, so he lets the laundry basket fall on the bathroom floor and follows the sounds of Steve making dinner.

There’s the smell of something delicious in the air, something Steve said it’d be a surprise but James knows it involves fish and a lot of lemon. James stares at Steve’s back for a second, just wanting to stash some courage while Steve stirs something on the stove, but then Steve turns and sees him.

“Hi,” Steve says, giving a full big smile, and as much as James likes Steve’s small ones, those big smiles are what makes his heart skips a leap. But now he— he can’t look at it without getting a little hurt, so he decides just to get over and ask what he came to ask. He won’t let this crap ruin Steve’s smile for him.

“Hey,” Bucky answers, licking his lips nervously. He swipes his forehead a little brusquely, annoyed at the sweat accumulating on it. “I, hm, Why. There’s blood in your clothes.” He mostly fails to make it a question, but the message seems to be intelligible enough, since Steve promptly lifts his arm, exposed with the short-sleeved shirt he’s wearing, and shows a patch of arm with a curative.

“I fell down with the bike,” Steve says, and, James swears, he looks a bit pitiful saying it. James feels his knees weakening with the relief that flushes over him, but he manages to get closer.

“Just your arm?” James asks, inspecting him with his eyes and pulling Steve’s shirt up to see the skin underneath, which makes Steve chuckle. It wasn’t James goal, he honestly just wanted to check, but he supposes it’s a bonus. Steve lets the spoon he was using fall on the sink and he cradles James’ jaws between his hands.

“Yeah,” Steve smiles, pulling him just enough to land a kiss on his lips. “I was lucky it wasn’t my face.”

“Well, we all are.” James rolls his eyes, can’t help his smile. “Your mug is ugly enough.”

Steve pretends to be offended and makes a show of getting away of James while actually making them more tangled. They end up against the kitchen table and he doesn’t even know how, with Steve’s hip resting against it and James right against him. “Go away,” Steve stays, hands in fists over James’ sweaty shirt, actually pulling him closer, “Ugh, you stink, go, go.”

It’s hard not cracking up and laugh at the ridiculous tease and the absurd amount James is gone on him, but he manages, narrow his eyes and tries to glare. “Watch it,” James presses himself against him, hands framing Steve’s body, “Or you’ll sleep on the couch.”

Steve makes a little _oh_ face, eyes big and mouth parting, like he's shocked or something. “Actually,” he says, and in a second his whole demeanor changes, voice going low and throaty, eyes hooded, “It’s kinda hot.”

“Yeah?” James asks, drawing him even closer, head finding the way to Steve's mouth but stopping just at the brink of touching it, “I’m what?”

“Hot,” Steve repeats, and closes the tiny gap between their lips to steal a kiss. But James doesn't let him get too far, holds him tight by his hips and presses him against the table. He hums lowly, brushing his mouth through the side of Steve's face, goes a little further and nips gently at Steve’s ear.

“How hot?” he asks, voice heated and a little teasing, thumbs moving in slow circles. He mouths the line of Steve's jaw, running lightly his teeth over it, and feels how Steve grows harder and harder against James' groin.

“Very,” Steve says, voice going all winded and low, and James feel Steve's hand pushing his shirt up, finding his skin, fingers bowed so his nails are scratching him softly, making him shudder.

“Yeah?” and James pushes him a little bit harder and rolls his hips at the same time, so Steve is mostly trapped instead of just pressed. But Steve uses it to push himself on the table, sitting with legs carding James' body and James shifts his weight, and can't help it, reaches down and takes a hold of Steve’s ass, just running his hands all over it, without true pressure. He slides a finger right in the seam over the crease between the cheeks and Steve groans quietly.

“Yeah,” he breathes, voice shaking a little, and James no longer has idea what they’re talking about. He leans up to find Steve's mouth, tongue probing, claiming. He kisses and kisses him until they’re out of breath and dinner is almost ruined.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s Thursday, and by now Steve knows Bucky will be at work almost all day long. Still, he stops outside Bucky’s home office, takes a deep breath and doesn’t come inside right away. It feels as if as soon as he does that, he’ll be crossing a threshold he won’t have how to go back. The nervous twist in his stomach and the voice in his head saying he’s fucking it all up aren’t enough to shut down the weight of what he has to do. He _has_ to, there’s no other choice now that he knows there’s someone circling closer them. After a long talk with Sharon he came to a conclusion it’s best if he makes his move before things blow in their faces.

The door to Bucky’s office is unlocked, like always, but it’s one of the places he doesn’t go often. Lately, not even Bucky uses it that much, since he’s been working whatever spot he stops long enough; with Steve in the living room at the background of TV, or even in the kitchen table while Steve makes food. Steve hopes what he needs access to isn’t locked as well, because picking a lock isn’t that quick as movies make it seem. But it’s maybe a sign of how trusting Bucky is, that the drawer under the work table has its key dangling on its mouth and the lock isn’t even turned.

Steve opens it and finds a box occupying half of the space, the box he gave Bucky as soon as they met. It looks the same as the first time he saw it, sitting innocently on his bed, but it still makes him feel a kind of tightness in his chest that can only be named as sadness. He pulls it out quickly and that’s when a movement on his peripheral vision makes him freeze.

“You know,” a voice; a feminine voice says, raspy and amused, “That’s where James put things that are important to him.”

Steve turns to look at the shape of a redhead woman, leaning against the window. She has a posture, an air powering her stance inspiring a kind of danger that would slip under naïve eyes, but she can’t fool him, even in her relaxed posture against the wooden frame. Steve watched Sharon use the same kind of strategy many times, turning people’s assumptions of her weakness against them. He guesses he just found out who is following him, after all, and it wasn’t his plan to meet this person like that, specially if she already knows that much, even where Bucky stashes his things. He chooses to say nothing.

“What are you doing?” She goes on, unfazed by his silence, with a tone that would be best directed to a mischievous child, a smirk resting on her full lips.

He tries to think quick. He doesn't have much options with how much he's exposed, and the only strategy he can think of is to bargain. Maybe if Steve can give her something she'll leave them alone for a while. So Steve swallows, sand-dry, and mutely opens the box, leaving it over the table and taking out only the pen-drive.

“He doesn’t know anything.” Steve says then, making himself sound flat despite the kind of dread twisting his guts in knots, and holds the pen-drive out to the woman. “Take it, whenever you want to, just- I’ll be gone soon.” At the impassiveness of her face, Steve feels his throat closing up, eyes stinging. There’s a deep kind of desperation growing inside him, the kind he just felt once before in his life, when he lost almost everything he had. “Please,” He shakes the hand holding the pen drive in front of her, his voice bordering a begging, cracking, “Please, I just need a little more time. Leave us alone.”

The woman blinks, slow like a cat, and her expression shifts. She smiles, a full one, and as sweet as it may look like, it makes Steve feel like he'd been just pushed and it’s falling of a thousand-store building. His hands are cold and clammy and he’s trembling when she goes out without another word, going away through the same way she came in.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Smith watches his reflex against the glass window, polished within an inch of its existence. He stretches the tie over his chest, fixes the suit jacket until he blares a sharpness and power he’s looking for. He despises making the part of another clown in the circus that is this operation, but he has to take the matters to his own hands. Those stupid pieces of shit would ruin this, and he’s been waiting for a lead for a long time. Good thing he knows how to play the long game.

There’s a sharp knock and Smith turns to watch one of the minions enters, one of the many he makes a point of never knowing the name. The vast majority is made of incompetent bastards and he has a strict policy about wasting time.

“Sir,” the man says, and gives Smith an envelope without another word. Smith doesn't need an introduction, had been waiting this for days. He opens, reads it  quick, and stays a long second just appreciating the flavor of victory on the back of his tongue. If you want something right, he thinks, do it yourself. His eyes comes up to rest on the man still waiting and he decides to give him vote of confidence. He’s nice like that. And if things goes south, Smith can just shot him in the face.

“It’s him,” Smith says, savoring the words, “Absolute discretion. You’ll come with me.”

“Yes, sir.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve is twenty-two, comfortable and sleeping, safe.

He isn’t.

He’s twelve, scared, crying and trying to make himself disappear against the wall. The room was white once, the kind of white you can always associate with a lab or a hospital, but now it’s all chafed with the smoke coming through the space between the floor and the door. He’s locked from the outside, no windows. The fire alarm ringing in his ears tells him that’s where he’s going to die. Alone, in a cage masked as a room, terrified and with his pants wet.

That’s how he’s supposed to go? Steve doesn’t know how an average kid lives, but he guesses it wouldn’t be like this; the needles and the tanks and the pain. He doesn’t want to live like that more than he wants to die like that, but nobody ever asks what he wants. 

Steve had tried to scream but nobody listened, and soon enough the smoke left him voiceless, breathless; now he opens his mouth and nothing comes and he's wheezing hard. He closes his eyes, presses them tight, and they’re burning so much because of the tears and the smoke that it just makes him cry harder, and tries to remember how his mother looked like but he can’t.

There’s sudden bang in the door, a curse, more bangs. He opens his eyes and hugs his knees against his chest, tries to make himself smaller, because there’s no place for him to hide. The room is bare, no furniture, just a cot in the corner. The electronic lock dies with a gasp and comes apart, enough to whoever is banging the door force it open. Steve looks up but he can’t see very well, his eyes are all blurred, so he just identifies a tall shape of a man dressed up in fireman gear, throwing away something that clanked loud on the floor. When he sees Steve, the man comes closer, quickly, and squats in front of him.

“Hey, hey,” his voice is muffled, but soft. He takes off the oxygen mask over his face and presses it over Steve’s. Steve doesn’t think about moving, can’t do so, but he still feels tears coming down silently. He pulls a breath, wheezing, but it’s hard and his nose has a lot of snot. “It’s okay,” the man says, and get Steve’s hand so he’s the one holding the mask over his face. “Like that, okay? I’m gonna get you out, don’t worry.” the man says and holds Steve, carrying him and getting up. He opens his mouth, tries to say _yes_ or _please_ , but no sound comes out. And then everything is black.

 

Steve wakes up with a startle, feeling too hot, stretched thin in his own skin.  He’s alone on Bucky’s bed, sweat coating over his body and making him feel gross and itchy. He isn’t really aware of going up, taking off his clothes or going to the bathroom, but he comes to himself under the shower, breathing hard and sniffing quietly. It's when the hole in his chest gets too big, like a warning, and he just, he just can't be alone, has to see Bucky even if for just a while. 

He turns the water off and dries himself poorly, hurrying to put some clothes. He silently follows Bucky’s voice to find him on his office, sitting in his chair, phone between ear and shoulder. Steve stays there and counts until sixty-three to distract himself and wait for the call to end. But when it does end, he pads closer to roll Bucky’s chair sideways, finding space to sit down across his thighs and hug him tight.

“Hey,” Bucky greets, softly. His warm hand comes on Steve’s back, rubbing the way up of his spine, up and down, and up again. Steve can feel his body relaxing, unlocking piece by piece. “Sorry, I had to take that call.”

“S’okay.” Steve mumbles, face pressed against against Bucky’s shoulder. He sighs when Bucky kisses his face and puts a hand inside his shirt, placing his palm flat over the small of Steve’s back, only his thumb moving in circles.

“Everything okay?” Bucky’s left hand holds Steve’s nape, with enough pressure to feel a place where security blooms from, “You seem spooked.”

Steve closes his eyes and inhales deeply, breathing Bucky in as everything he needed to calm his heart. “Just a bad dream.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s almost seven-thirty and Steve is in Sharon’s place, just finishing some reports. She likes doing it herself, but Steve convinced her he could do it, since she’s still out of town. It’s the least he can do, with how much she helps him, and he does it dutifully. But Steve still has to wait until around nine to move, because the intel Holster gave him says at ten, and arriving early won’t do him any favors. Being exposed alone for so long it’s not a good thing and it’s not like Brock would come early. Ten pm, however, is much later than he’s usually out on a week-day, so he reaches his phone and dials the number from memory.

“Hi,” Bucky’s voice fills his ears after the third ring, sounding warm, and it doesn’t fail to make him smile.

“Hi, Buck.” Steve looks down at his fingers, playing with a pen. Maybe he’s unconsciously trying to distract himself from the hard weight in his chest, always present when Steve has to lie, but it doesn’t work. “Just calling to say I’m going out with some friends, so I’ll be home a little late.”

“Yeah, sure,” Bucky replies easily, “Call if you need me to haul your drunk ass home.”

It makes him chuckle and he can’t help it, hearing Bucky’s playful tone is like an assurance that everything’s going to be okay. It immediately makes things easier, lighter. “Okay,” he agrees, “But don’t eat the mac and cheese I left in the fridge. I want it.” He says, just to tease, because he knows Bucky developed a weakness for this homemade dish.

“Oh yeah? Maybe I will.” Bucky answers, mocking challenging voice, “Do you have drunk carvings for macaroni and cheese?”

“How did you know?”

Steve could feel Bucky’s eye roll through the line, but his voice is sounding fond when he says, “Bye. Have fun.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve waits, and waits. Nobody comes. Half an hour later, more nothing. He makes some walks around the station, still with a small load of people, but he doesn’t sees Rumlow anywhere. After a moment of hesitation he reaches his phone and dials the security line, but nobody picks up. Well, he has to put that on report, but he can’t wait any longer. Even waiting for that long was a bad idea and it’s better if he gives up.

Steve sighs, annoyed, and makes his way out of the station. He’s walking down the street, back to where he parked his bike, and it's strangely desert. He hears his own footsteps and there's a kind of tension in the atmosphere that makes him nervous. Steve startles and halts to a stop when a man steps in front of him, coming from the side of the block and shutting his way.

“Fancy meeting you again.” The man smiles and Steve frowns, because what? And then he looks at him again, really looks, and the penny drops. It’s the same guy that helped Steve in the alley days ago.

“Yeah.” Steve says, non-concomitantly. The suspicions filling his thoughts are a blaring warning, but he tries the simplest approach and walks around him.

Two steps ahead he heard the click of a gun safety getting off.

“Come on, Rogers. That’s your name now, right?.” The man says, amused, and Steve stops again, blood cold. “You’ll have to come with me, now.” Steve presses his lips, ignores the panic in his chest. If they want him to come, that means they want him alive and this guy won't shot him in any important place. This leaves some wriggle room for a way out and Steve doesn't even think about not taking it. He uses his position to detach a taser disk from his belt. He knows for experience it’s strong enough to incapacitate a big man.

Shit, this really isn’t his week.

Steve turns deliberately slow, doing a show to distract him with the hand in his backpack’s strap, making like he’s going to take something out of it. He gains seconds where the guy’s eyes are exactly there, but it’s enough time to throw the disk at his chest and it lands right over his sternum. Steve just hears the chock going full-blast and the gasp of pain, he hears the sound of a body falling on the ground but he doesn’t stay to know if the guy is awake or not. He’s already running. He runs with all he has.

He doesn’t even know where’s going and the worst thing is he can’t even trace a plan of direction with the alarms screaming inside his head. He’s confused and fucking angry at his own stupidity, can’t even understand what he did wrong. How that man knew his name? How could he know where he’d be? There’s a mole, there’s someone— How many of them? Was it Hydra? He’d been so stupid and distracted with Bucky, and—

 _Oh_. “Fuck,” He curses out loud, breathless and he can’t really wait until he finds a safe place because he has to make sure, or he won’t be capable of keep going, he _has_ to make sure—

He turns into the first alley he sees. He holds his breath, but doesn’t hear any steps coming for him and deems it enough for now. It has to be enough for now. He walks deeper and crouches behind the dumpster, reaches for his phone at the same time he picks the gun in his pack. He dials, heart in his throat.

“Pick up, pick up, please...” He whispers, phone glued to his ear, breathing hard, and he can’t help how his shoulders relaxes when Bucky speaks. He feels so relieved he just wants to take a second and cry.

“Drunk yet?” Bucky says as a manner of a hello, voice light.

Steve swallows over the painful lump in his throat, eyes stinging, and tries to sound normal, tries not make Bucky nervous. “No,” He forces himself to laugh, praying for his voice not to tremble, “I called to tell you I’m, I’m going to sleep at my friend’s house. It’s easier.”

“You sure?” Bucky asks, and Steve can hear his frown, because that’s not something Steve has ever done before. “I can pick you up, I mean, I can’t drive, but a cab and-”

“No, it’s fine,” Steve interrupts, softly, closes his eyes for a second, “You’ll be grumpy if I make you go out late.”

Bucky hums quietly, and for a second Steve thinks he’s going to insist, but he says, “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure.”

Steve inches his head forward, looking at the alley’s mouth for a second. He doesn’t see anyone. He inches back. “Did you see anything weird?” He asks, because the worry is eating him alive.

“No, why?” Bucky questions back, now sounding confused.

He pressed his eyes closed for just a second, hard, mouth moving in a soundless curse. “The name and addresses of some students were stolen,” he says, making something up quick, “I heard there was someone pretending to be a friend of theirs to break in and steal stuff.”

“Wait, for real?”

“I’m serious.” Steve says and he can’t help it how pleading he sounds, “Bucky-”

“No, yeah, okay. I’ll pay attention.”

“Don’t open the door to anybody,” he stresses, “And lock everything. Okay?”

“What? Do you think someone will, what, pretend to be your friend on the window?” He hears Bucky’s small laugh, still sounding weirded out, and Steve doesn’t have the time to fix that. He chances to do so, soothe his confusion but he can't. He just has to make sure Bucky stays safe until he can find him. And then he'll tell Bucky everything.

“Just lock it,” he pleads, “Please?”

“Hey, hey,” he can see the frown in Bucky’s voice, and he knows he hadn’t make a good job of keeping the mask of casual worry over the story he gave. “What’s wrong? You’re acting weird.”

“Nothing,” he lies, and it comes as hard as always. The stone in his throat is back and he blinks repeatedly because he can’t just break down now, but he’s so scared. “Just worried.” he manages, quiet.

“Well, if you’re _that_ worried, come back.”

“I can’t right now.” Steve looks around again. He knows they’re coming. He also knows the call is taking too long and he has to move if he wants to have a chance at escaping, but he just can’t make himself hang up just yet. There’s the possibility that’s the last time Steve will hear Bucky’s voice and it’s making his chest hurt like it’s been stabbed, and he doesn’t want to let it go, doesn’t want it to end. “But you can eat the mac and cheese, okay? Just because I won’t be there to cuddle you,” he tries to joke and it falls flat.

“I saved it for you.” Bucky says, sounding puzzled and a little distressed, and Steve didn’t mean to make him be like that.

“No, eat it, okay?”

“Steve,” Bucky voice is low and very serious, “Are you sure you’re-”

“Buck,” He cuts him. There are steps coming, fast. “ _Bon nuit._ ” He whispers and ends the call. 

Steve tries to repeat some breathing exercises, tries to put himself together because if he fights this affected he’s sure he’ll lose. He puts the phone and the wallet in the backpack, squeezing it behind the dumpster and putting some paper and garbage from the trash to cover it for good measure. Better not to have on him anything that could give them so much information so easily

Steve squares his shoulders and inhales deep. The hold in his gun is firm. He gets up. The shadows in the street shows there are at least five people just waiting him to get out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“James, go to sleep.” Natasha says, sounding annoyed. It’s not different from her usual reception when he calls her in weird hours and it gives him a sense of security. He almost breathes easier, but it doesn’t help the tight knot in his chest, the anxiety scratching under his ribs and making him go a little crazy.

“Nat,” Bucky hears his voice weak and clears his throat, tries again, “ Nat. Are you free right now? Can you help me?”

There’s only silence for a second and then he hears something shuffle, like Natasha is moving around her bed. “What’s going on?” she asks, suddenly serious and _there_.

“Steve,” he says, and rubs a hand over his face, tries to organize his thoughts, “It’s Steve. He, he called me, said he’d be sleeping in a friend’s house, but there’s something wrong, Nat, he-”

“Wrong how?”

“He sounded like,” he stops, tries to think, “like he was scared and he, he said some weird things, and now he’s not, he’s not answering his phone.”

“And you instantly assume something’s wrong? Maybe he’s not hearing it.”

“No, it’s not-” he cuts himself and pulls his hair hard, exasperated at his own incapacity of making Natasha understand, at his own lack of ability with words in that moment. He can’t convince her by logic right now, not with how much his distress is filling the thinking parts of his brain. “Please,” he asks, praying she’ll listen and believe him anyway, “Just, just— humor me, okay? Please, Nat. There’s something wrong. I know it.”

The line goes silent again and James waits, coiled in tension. She either will say yes or no and if she says no— he doesn’t know what he’ll do but he has to do something he can’t— he can't just stay there doing fucking nothing while Steve may be in danger, he—

“Okay. I’ll find him.” Natasha answers, firm, and James feels his muscles weakening from pure relief of not being alone on this, “I’ll meet you soon. Buy me some blue mountain.”

“I swear,” he says, a little winded and hoarse, “I’ll buy you every expensive coffee on earth if you find him.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

The line goes dead and James hides his hands in his face, tries to breath without feeling like he’s suffocating.

 

 

 


	4. LANDING

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

James doesn’t have to wait more than an hour for Natasha's arrival, but it seems like a lifetime. She literally appears in front of him, he hadn’t even know how, maybe for the fact he’s been worrying himself sick, burning in sadness and fear, and he'd been trying to— to just slow down the overwhelming anxiety, covering his eyes and counting breaths. He had managed not to freak out much, in the terms he hadn’t had a complete breakdown, but Natasha takes one look at him, blinks, and goes to the kitchen.

He frowns, confused, but doesn’t have the energy to ask. He feels drained already and he rubs his thighs, drying his clammy hands and getting back the feeling in his muscles, gathering courage to get up. He figures he can stall a little, just until Natasha comes back. He’s just straightening up when she returns with a cup of orange juice and pushes it at his hand.

“Drink.” she orders, and he does. The juice is definitely Irish, he tastes it as soon as it touches his tongue. He doesn’t question it, keeps going until it’s finished. She smiles a little at his slight cough at the end, just because he drank too quick, but it disappears soon and then Natasha is all serious business.

“Alright.” He puts the glass away when Natasha starts, in a tone that holds finality, as if agreeing to something inside her head. She pulls the neck of James’ shirt down and attaches something over his sternum. He just watches it, utterly dismayed. It looks like a birthmark, so inconspicuous. “That,” she points at the dot and put his shirt in place, “Is a tracker. Don’t lose it.”

“Okay,” James frowns, staring at his chest for a second longer, and then at Natasha. She’s not looking at him, nor volunteering any information about the need for such a thing as a tracker, or how in the hell she has one in the first place.

Well, if James still had doubts about the kind of job she has, he doesn’t any longer.

Natasha is doing something in her phone, and maybe it’s what makes the dot in his skin blink a blue light once and then die, but he can’t be sure. He feels vulnerable and disoriented and if she just took a look at him she’d know it and— and it doesn’t matter how much he trusts Natasha, he can’t stop how his stomach hollows and how he’s so nervous his hands are pure ice.

He licks his lips, opens his mouth a couple of times and decides not to ask about that, knowing it’s a big can of worms, and instead tries to have answers about what she found, because it seems like a priority now. He’s sure she found Steve, he just has to know what’s going on, maybe so he can stop feeling like he’s so fucking lost.

“Where’s Steve?”

Natasha pays no mind to his question and James tries to control his urge to make a tantrum, to give it up to the tightness knotting in his chest. It doesn’t come as a surprise how easily Natasha brushes unwanted things away, because ever since they know each other she’s picky about what is worth her attention. He just thinks his question is fucking important and, Jesus, can’t she just say something? Even if she wants to spare him details to make things easier, not having an answer doesn’t make him less freaked out than he already is.

“This,” She pulls a gun out of a holster on her side, hidden by the cut of her leather jacket, and James takes a step back, mouth falling open and hand raised as if stopping Natasha from coming closer. She ignores it, again, and turns the handle to James, offering it, going on as if she hasn’t seen his shock, “This is your gun. Don’t lose it either.”

James’ eyes are round, big, and he doesn’t want to touch the gun, doesn’t make a move to hold it, but Natasha leaves her arm stretched and she’s giving him a look that’s— it’s not angry, rather it’s strong, hard, but it has a softness in the edges that says she understands his reluctance.

“You asked for my help,” she says, tone quiet, and he sees his old friend right there, “This is me, helping.”

James knows what’s she’s really saying is _do you trust me?_ And the answer is yes— it has been yes for all long, but he has to take a moment and remind himself of it, that this is Natasha, Nat, and she wouldn’t— she wouldn’t do that if it wasn’t necessary. This thought makes it a little easier, lifts a little the weight pressing down his chest, but on the other side— on the other side, if a gun is really needed then things are uglier than he thought. Maybe Steve is in real danger, maybe the guys he worked for came for him and—

He presses his lips together and blinks a couple of times to control the sting of blind panic, before grabbing the handle. It’s heavier than it looks, but it fits smoothly inside his palm. James expects it to feel foreign, a kind of new that is frightening, but— he looks at it, and there’s a pain growing behind his left eye for a moment, as if someone is slowly piercing it with a needle and then— then it’s gone.

“Okay,” he says, more to himself than Natasha, and curves his fingers, testes the hold, swallowing down in a loud lick and ignoring how his heart is beating faster. “Okay.” he repeats, slowly, now just trying to convince himself. Then licks his lips and, “Will you tell me what’s going on?”

“We don’t have time.” Natasha says, and there’s a _we’ll talk later_ under her tone. “Do you know how to use it?”

“Uh,” he gapes a little, collects what he knows by watching action movies, “Safety off, point and shoot?”

“Good enough,” Natasha shrugs one shoulder, just a small twitch, “Hide it somewhere.” she says and starts to walk towards the door and James knows it’s his cue to follow her, but his feet won’t move. His heart is still caving his chest, beating wild and painful, opening a wide hole of pure fear. The panic is like a deaf bat living inside his guts, slamming itself everywhere, messing all up. No breath seems deep enough to calm his muscles. He’s holding himself with pins and needles and it won’t work for much longer, and he just, he just—  

“You, you’re sure, right?” He asks, voice coming more vulnerable than he intends to.

“James.” She says, something that sounds like a _yes, obviously_ and he nods, slowly.

She’s standing at the door and fiddles with the handle a little, as if deciding if she should just get out or wait to James get his shit together.

“I’d do this alone, but we have ground to cover and two people will be faster. I called a friend, but he’s late.” It seems like she’s apologizing, and he doesn’t like it because he’s the one that’s making Natasha do this, so he starts to frown and opens his mouth to argue, but she just shakes her head and he thinks, _okay, not the time._ He just nods again. “Since you don’t have a car, we’ll take my Viper. I know you don’t like it,” she says, as if riding a motorcycle would be the last drop after handing him a freaking _gun_ , “but it’ll be faster.” And he just nods one more time. There’s a second of silence and she’s staring at him, as if searching for something. “Let’s go.” Natasha walks out the door without looking back and James forces his legs to follow.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They stopped in a part of the city James doesn't know much and Natasha had killed the engine. They got off the seats less disheveled than James expected at the speed Natasha drove and had left the Viper behind, walking away. His legs trembled a little when he stepped on the ground, affected by the steady vibration, but Natasha started to walk fast like she didn’t felt it. He couldn’t do much besides follow her, through a maze of empty streets. It wasn’t surprising, considering that the last time he looked at a clock it read 3AM, but it gives James the impression of being inside a dream or something, too surreal, too weird.

They're still walking when Natasha fishes her phone, and James can only see her thumb moving on the screen, but after a minute her steps come to a halt.

“That’s the closest we got,” she says and stuffs her phone away, “Now we have to search the area.”

Natasha says like it’s simple, obvious, but James looks around and all he sees are streets and lamps and buildings and— there’s nothing standing out, nothing that would give him a clue of how to start. It’s not the first time he feels so out of his depth tonight, but it reaches deeper because, according to Natasha’s plan, from there on he’ll have to do it alone.

“Where?” He asks, a little winded and overwhelmed, and when he looks back at Natasha she is pulling another gun from her side— because of course she is. James tries not to be too perplexed, especially at how well she can hide those things in clothes that look so normal. She catches him looking at it and just arches an eyebrow, looks pointedly at him, and he remembers he’s supposed to be armed too.

“We’ll go around first, just the block.” Natasha says, while he grabs the handle poking out of his waistband and takes out the gun, “Look out for anything weird. Pay attention to sounds, to things left behind, like something that fell in a fight or a wet spot-” she doesn’t say blood, but he sees it, sees Steve hurting and bleeding and she stops talking with the face he makes. “I’ll take this way.” She says, and just— goes.

James pinches his arm. Still all real, still not a dream.

He takes a deep breath, turns around and starts to walk.

 

 

* * *

 

 

James walks with the gun held down at his side. It doesn’t seem like a very good idea to wander around with it out in the open, and he doesn’t know the first thing about walking stealthy, aside the obvious rule of not making too much noise, so having its weight on his hand ends up being just one more source of worry, it makes him much more nervous than secure. But if Natasha saw it as necessary he isn’t going to put it away either.

He tries to make his steps softer, to be quieter, but even his ragged breath seems loud, resounding with the stray noises he spots here and there. James is on the edge, his nerves stretched thin, and when his phone vibrates against his leg he jumps and almost yelps.

“ _Shit, fuck_ ,” he manages just to make a curse in whispers, and the phone keeps vibrating, enough that he knows it’s a call and not a text. When he grabs it from his pocket he almost lets it fall, because— Jesus, it’s Steve, _Steve_ , his smiling pic eating ice cream and his name blinking in block letters on the screen and— and James just stares for a second, frozen, and then hurries to get it.

“Steve?!”

“I’m sorry to call you, Mr. Barnes,” a voice that's definitely not Steve’s says, “It’s Smith speaking. We had a meeting last week about my summer house? I hope you remember.”

James blinks repeatedly, pulling breaths, feeling like he just ran a marathon. It takes him some seconds but he finally is able link the voice with a face of a potential client he met. And— yeah, he remembers enough of Smith’s sleazy smiles and cold eyes that knowing he has Steve’s phone doesn’t make him calmer.

“Yes. What are you doing with Steve’s phone?” He can’t keep the hardness of his voice, but it’d be a miracle if it sounded menacing at all with how much he’s frightened.

“I don’t mean to alarm you,” Smith goes on, voice perfectly calm, “But I found a boy unconscious on the street and he had your number in his phone. I’m surprised it’s really you.”

James almost felt his knees give up. “Unco- Is he okay? Where is he?”

“Oh, he’s fine. Just a little bruised.” He says, almost dismissive, “It’d be good if you could come collect him, though.”

“Of course,” He says, because he’d never think about not doing so. He goes to run his hand over his face but he forgets he’s holding a gun and headbutts himself with it. He curses, but the pain pulsing quick cuts through the panic and he swallows another wave of fear, inhaling deeply. Still, his chest is heaving. “Just tell me where he is.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The first step James gives inside Smith’s house, he feels a grip on his wrist and he gasps in surprise. He tries to step back, but his his body is being pulled and moving without his consent. Suddenly his face is right against the wall, colliding hard. He can’t help his grimace and grunt in the recoil of pain, and writhes to escape, but he can’t. His arm is twisted against his back in an angle that holds the border between soreness and sharp hurt, and there’s a hand on the back of his head, pressing his cheek against the concrete.

“What the fuck?!” He tries to free himself again, but the guy pulls his arm and the pain gets stronger, louder. He stops, panting. “Smith called me here! He said I could get in!”

The man doesn't answer. The weight in his head disappears and a hand sneaks over his body, touching him in hard presses and— and he fucking _freezes,_ eyes bulging out. He honestly thinks he’s so fucked and he can’t, he can’t— but the guy just takes out the gun James hid in his jean’s band. He hears the quiet thud of it falling and being kicked away. He breathes again, almost relieved, but not that much. The man, still gripping his arm, grabs his neck again and pushes him towards what looks like a living room. He can't do anything but go.

His eyes immediately fall on Steve and if there’s one single cell in his body that isn’t terrified, it no longer exists. Because Steve- Steve is on his knees and tied. Steve has a gun pointed to his head.

“Steve,” It slips off his lips and he just— he just can’t look at it but doesn’t want to look away either. There’s a stone in his throat, clogging his breath, and he feels so powerless, weak, he can’t— God. Steve’s face has blood running down his eyebrow and the side of his mouth, one reddening eye swelling close. He has blood on the collar of his shirt and he’s breathing heavily, as if in pain.

“Bucky, no. No,” Steve’s one eye gets big and bigger than the natural, filled in panic, and when he talks his voice croaks a little, “No, no,” he keeps repeating and turns to look at the side and James follows his eyes. Steve’s looking in direction of an open door, but there’s no one there. “You said you wouldn’t get him if I stopped fighting, you fucking said-!” He’s cut, grunting in pain, when the man kicks his side. James’ first instinct is to move towards him, forgetting for a second he’s trapped himself. He doesn’t even make a step before the man behind him _pulls_ his arm and he cries, sees spots in his visions for the pain.

“Good evening, Mr. Barnes.” James is panting and he follows the voice with blurry eyes. There’s Smith, coming out of the opening Steve was glaring at before. He looks unfazed, sipping at a glass of whiskey. “I’m glad you could join us.”

“What- what the hell is this?” His voice cracks against his will and he’s suddenly so fucking angry at himself.

“I’m sorry for startling you, but you have something I want.” Smith walks smoothly, leaving his drink on his way. James recoils in tension when he gets close enough to get a hard hold of James’ chin, forcing it up and away from Steve’s face on a demand of attention. Still immobilized, he doesn’t have a choice. James looks at him, stomach turning in nausea. “I want whatever it was that Rebecca Barnes gave you.” Smith says, finality in his voice.

“What are you talking about?” James wants to sound angry but he hears the desperation in his voice.

“Let him go,” Steve interrupts, hardness and ice in his words despite his injuries. “If you don’t let him go, I’ll fucking end you,” his voice is low, but angry, dangerous. James didn’t ever saw him sound like this, say things like that, and he’s doesn’t know what to think about it. “I’ll kill all of you.” Steve growls, and James can’t picture something like that. He can’t fit in his head, because Steve is— his Steve is real sweet and gentle and—

He’s breathing hard and loud, knows he’s on the verge of a breakdown. He just— god he just have to get away and— He moves away from Smith’s fingers harsh, and he’s holding so hard it stings. He tries to wiggle out of the hold the man has on him, but this gets him a kick on the back of his knee, and he falls with a cry. He’d completely stumble if it wasn’t for the grip on his arm, and he feels tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, it hurts fucking bad, and he just— he just— he just wants to wake up, please let him wake up.

“Bucky!” He hears Steve calling and it’s like another stab of pain.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” James says, hissing, gritted between his teeth. The pain coming from his knee is spreading through his body quickly and it’s white hot. He knows he keeps talking, he doesn’t have much control of what’s coming. “If you tell me, I’ll give to you, anything, I’ll- it’s yours, and you let Steve, Steve go.”

“I see.” Smith sounds bored, “So let me explain it to you.” James opens his eyes and Smith is right there, crouching in front of him, blocking his view from anything but him.  “We’re CIA. I apologize for how we’ve met, I had to make sure you were really you, you understand. This is a,” he makes a gesture that means to compass everything, “a misunderstanding. If you’re willing to cooperate, then things will get a lot easier for you.”

Smith then gets up and snaps his fingers. Suddenly James is hauled to his feet, and the guy just lets him go, stops holding him. James wobbles, surprised, pulls his weight only on the right leg and braces his sore arm against his chest.

“Mr. Barnes,” Smith says, “if you have anything left by your sister, please hand it to us now.”

“I,” he licks his sandy lips, blinking repeatedly, trying to think fast. His panic had not subdued despite not being restrained anymore, and he keeps pulling breaths in but he still feels suffocated. “I don’t know, what-”

“Documents, books, notebooks, devices,” Smith recites, tone impatient, “They contain stolen intelligence and the CIA would like to have it back.”

James mouth opens and closes and no sound comes out. The silence stretches, terse and ready to snap. It only makes him more anxious, his thoughts frayed thin and slippery; nothing he can grasp for long, and he just can’t think, just _can’t._

“This is a matter of national security and your lack of cooperation won’t be tolerated,” Smith presses on and James reads the promise of more violence. “Mr. Barnes, know this: Dr. Erskine was an infiltrated agent and he betrayed the country. Eight years ago he armed a bomb to steal secret intel and a child from our hands.”

“He’s lying!” Steve yells, voice rough, “He didn’t stole anything, he saved me!” James turns to Steve then, because— just what—? And then Steve is on the floor, gasping in pain. It was so fast, he didn’t even saw how that happen. Before he can move there’s a hand on his shoulder, pressing hard; a warning. Heart full of fury and fear clawing up his throat, he feels like exploding, like curling and crying at how powerless he is.

“Stop!” James is shouting and doesn’t know, “Stop hurting him, we didn’t do anything! He didn’t do anything!”

Smith laughs. "He,” Smith points at Steve, “Killed three agents tonight. I wouldn’t call that ‘nothing’”

James looks at Steve, his eyes round with affliction his breath heavy, pleading silently. Just what the fuck—

“If you don’t remember, let me refresh your memory, Mr. Barnes.” He knows Smith is talking but he doesn’t register the words. He can’t look away from Steve. Steve isn’t looking at him. “When Erskine armed that bomb someone to helped him. A man that also went through the chaos in the facility dressed as a fireman. That man grabbed the kid and ran. “

“Stop!” Steve is finally looking up and his eyes are swimming. He looks desperate.

“That man, Mr. Barnes, was you.”

It’s obvious Smith is completely insane. James wouldn’t think twice to regard Smith’s words as a lie, but Steve is pale and wears a blind fear, different than before. He’s acting as if he every word coming out of Smith held a power, and James doesn’t know what to think of that. His eyes flashes to Steve from Smith repeatedly, and he wanted to sound fierce but it came small, “You’re fucking insane.”

Smith opens his mouth, about to talk, but he freezes. His mouth doesn’t close again and there’s a string of red slipping down on his forehead. Three seconds later four bodies fall on the ground.

“Sorry for the wait.” Natasha says and James startles. He looks at his side and sees her coming to his left, two guns still raised. Behind her a blond man walks, tall, armed, protection around his chest. He goes around the place, seeming to check if there’s anyone they hadn’t seen, and then nods at Natasha and she seems to relax just a twitch.

James takes too long to move, the shock now paralyzing him instead of a stranger's hand. But when Steve slumps down, like a puppet whose lines had been cut, he just goes without thinking. His knee screams in pain when he levels down, but he ignores it, blocks his breath and reaches for Steve, hands trembling, frantic, to untie him.

“Steve, Steve?” James waits until the blue eyes are on him. James can’t help his own body, hands rising to pull away the strands of sunny hair away, eyes searching the cuts on his face. He wants to hold him, kiss him, feel that Steve’s there and he’s alive and safe and he— “How much are you hurt?” he asks, breathy.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Steve talks very low, closes his eyes for a second, seeming to recollect himself. When he looks at James again, he seems more alert. “Bucky, we have to leave, we don’t know if more are coming. We can’t stay here.”

“Let’s go ho-”

“We can’t go home either, we can’t-” Steve is whispering now and his voice cracks a little. He grabs James’ forearm, squeezing hard. “Buck, we have to hide for a while.”

“I’m not gonna hide,” he says, automatic, but Steve looks so— “Steve, what’s going on?”

“Those guys-"

“Is this a drug problem? Are they a mafia? That guy-”

“We don’t have time-"

“Boys,” Natasha cuts into their argument and her eyes have a kind of strength and urgency that demands compliance, “Let’s go.” She turns to Steve and adds, “I have a safe place.”

He doesn’t want to be there any longer either, but it’s hard to convince himself this is not the time for answers— apparently this is a recurring theme tonight.  But James swallows his protest, his questions, especially because Steve needs medical attention and he— he really doesn’t want to be in that place, with dead people bleeding on the floor.

“What about the-” he doesn’t finish it, gulps down, looking at the bodies around.

“Clint.” Natasha answers, as if it’s explanation enough, and turns around. James goes to help Steve, trying to make sure he could stay up, but he’s the one that ends up needing help to limp his way out of the door.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The safe place is a small apartment, decorated with hideous flower patterns and pastel tones everywhere. James sees LP collections and more flowers paintings hanging in the walls, books and yarn casually laying around. It almost seems like a stereotypical home for an old lady and James guesses that’s the intention. Natasha isn’t one for stereotypes but she likes to play with people that have those.

She had wrapped his knee in ice packs with a towel as soon as he sat on the couch, and the throbbing is getting lighter and bearable. There was just one pack left then, and he didn’t used it in his shoulder, just handed it to Steve to put it over his eye. The silence had been a heavy weight since then, but when Natasha comes back from the apartment’s bowels and leaves a first-aid kit in James' lap before disappearing behind a door again, James almost breaks it to thank a thousand times how deeply she understands him. He wants answers, of course he does, but how can he demand them when Steve is still hurting and there’s dried blood on his face? He needs to make sure Steve is okay, at least, to clean his wounds and make sure it's nothing too serious, since James' protests for not going to a hospital had fallen in deaf ears.

Cleaning had to be first, though. James can’t bear to watch the red blotching Steve skin for much longer. He turns to face Steve sitting at his side, and opens the box, going through its contents. He wets gauze pads with the bottle of saline and starts to wipe off Steve’s forehead, his cheek and the corner of his mouth, gently. Steve just let his eyes closed, head tipped against the sofa’s back, ice pack melting. James keeps cleaning, and he doesn’t see Steve wince or act like he's in pain, but he knows Steve must be hurting. If he's honest with himself, James wants to strip Steve and examine every inch of him, but it doesn’t seem much practical at the moment.

“Are you hurt anywhere else?” James asks, voice low. Steve’s good eye turns to watch him then, unwavering, but James’ sight doesn’t stray from the path of the clean up job. He wets more gauze and tries to get off a dry patch of blood on Steve’s chin without rubbing it.

“I’m fine,” Steve says, and the lie is so obvious to James that the only doubt left is why Steve is lying at all. To calm James’ nerves? Yes, his hands are still shaking, his chest fucking hurts, and he’s grateful for the couch holding his body, but the truth is that one more lie will just to set him on the edge. Another lie on top of all the things Smith said only makes him want to scream.

He wishes Steve would open up to him, just this once. He’d protest right then but he—  he feels so fucking tired all of a sudden and he doesn’t have the energy to fight.

“Okay,” James pulls a long breath and he has to look for the antiseptic inside the box longer than he should around the clouds in his eyes. Once he finds it, he starts to dab it on Steve’s cut and they only start to bleed again a little. But Steve doesn’t hiss or move. He seems like an old statue, rigid and sad. “I, I’m not sure if you need stitches.”

“No, no stitches,” Steve agrees. James can feel Steve’s sigh when his breath curls around his mouth. “Those butterfly stitches are enough.”

James nods and finishes with the antiseptic to move things around the box again, fishing out the curatives. Steve’s face looks so much better now and James feels something unknotting inside his chest after he finishes his job.

“Aren’t you gonna ask?” Steve says, voice small, when James grabs his hand and starts to clean up his knuckles without another word.

“Ask what?”

“About, about the things Smith said.”

And irrationally James feels the anger rising up in his veins because, yeah, he had asked, he’d been asking this whole time and it got him a giant truck loaded with nothing.

“Does it matter if I’m going to ask? You’re not going to tell me the truth anyway.” Steve flinches, visibly. The jab of guilt when James watches it is unfair, he thinks, but he feels it anyway. He looks up to see Steve’s face scrunched in a mix of sadness and regret and it wasn’t as if James’ rudeness was unjustified, but he doesn’t like to see the result of it. “Will you tell me, then?” He asks, more placate this time.

The silence stretches and it’s answer enough.

“I,” Steve breathes heavily, “I don’t know how." He sounds small, lost, and James suddenly can see every one of those years that make Steve younger, those that usually Steve overlaps naturally. And it makes James stop, reconsider, offering a metaphorical hand to Steve’s feelings. His real hands are wrapping Steve’s knuckles, carefully.

“Those things that Smith said,” James starts and has to stop for a second, filled with an alien cold at the sound of  Smith’s voice echoing at the back of his thoughts, “Were they true? About my sister and Erskine? About me?”

“Bucky,” James looks up and Steve’s eyes are swimming, water threatening to fall. It’s such sudden thing, happened so quick, it almost startles him. He waits but nothing else comes and— and if Steve won’t say anything, it just meant that—

“It is, isn’t?”

“No! No.” Steve retorts quick and James senses him hold his hand as if it was an experience outside of what’s real, distant like his skin is covered in a layer of jell-o. “Trust me.” Steve says, and it echoes inside his head distorted and _wrong._ How can he? How can he give Steve his trust if Steve gives him no place to build it?

“You can’t ask me that.” He says and even if his tone is hard, it trembles a little. He sees Steve freeze, eyes hurt, “I come looking for you and I get all this shit thrown at me and you, you don’t explain _anything._ ” His anger is rising, burning, and he like screaming, because, fuck, how can Steve be like that when they are—  when they were—  “You expect me just to, what?” he spits, “To trust you anyway?”

“Please,” Steve asked, quietly, “I know it’s hard but-”

“The truth, Steve,” he cuts, not minding his rudeness, “Now.”

Steve licks his lips and looks around, seeming lost and vulnerable. He takes a deep breath and James just waits.

“There are," Steve stops, tries again, "There are lies and truths.” He finishes, meek.

“About you being a- a fugitive?”

“No, he lied,” Steve shakes his head, seems anxious for James to understand that. There’s an opening right there for Steve to explain himself and James doesn’t think he’ll do it, but after a minute, Steve does. “I’m, I’m an agent,” he says, docile as if his words weren't a weapon, “I work for of an international organization affiliated to the government. They call themselves SHIELD.”

James freezes, blinks, immovable. The first instinct would be to put it as a lie, deny it, doesn’t see how things fit, but— but he does see it. The weird things that were off about Steve’s behavior, the excuses and stories. He wants to ask, _how could you_ , he wants to scream— how could Steve look at his face and lie so easily, when James was there so fucking in lo—  

He doesn’t. He shuts his eyes, runs his hands over his face, his air, counts his breaths. He braces himself because he has to dig more, because he feels he won’t have any other opportunity.

“So the men- the men he said you killed?” James asks, against his palms.

Steve exhaled, as if it was painful to get it out. “They, they attacked me.” he says. And yes, James imagined that. Doesn’t change what happened.

“And I,” he slips his hands to his lap, looks at them for a while, “Did I kidnap you?”

“No!” Steve moves to reach him, but stops amid, as if he sensed James couldn’t cope with being touched now. “Erskine, your sister and you... You saved me.”

“I don’t,” he swallows and it hurts, his eyes are blurry with webs of frenzy, doesn’t feel himself blabbing, “I don’t remember. I can’t remember, I can’t, Steve,” he turns to Steve, desperate. “Steve, why, why-" he can't finish it, lost in the noise inside his head, and Steve just looks at him, hurt eye still swollen now watering just as the good one, pressing his lips together, and doesn't break the silence.

“There was a car crash.” Steve says after a moment and his voice wobbles, “They were following us and, and you- you were dead.” Steve says that like it stabs him, “You were _dead,_ ” he repeats and licks his lips, seeming to gather his words. “Erskine used his research to save you, but when you woke up, you- you didn’t remember anything, so-”

“Is that true?” he cuts Steve, “You’re- are you making this shit up?”

“I’m not lying,” Steve looks at him then, and James is so fucking frustrated at his gentle, hurt tone, “It’s true, you were- and we didn’t know how you’d react to the treatment, but we had to take a shot and-”

“Then why did he make me believe I was- Why?”

“They wanted you to be safe,” he says, as if it’s that simple and his eyes fill with new pools of unshed sadness. “Your sister felt guilty, she wanted you to live a better life, free of all of that.”

James looks away, but his eyes are unfocused, far away. There’s an iron fist closing inside his chest, squeezing his heart and lungs and tearing things apart and the silence builds up, uncomfortable and loud, piercing his ears with a high pitched frequency. He somehow thinks he’s in shock with how cold his body is and how detached he feels and it’s so _absurd,_ so out of the fucking reality to sit there and listen to all of this and—  what? Believe it? Somehow think that all he knows about himself is another lie better than thinking Steve is lying to him again?

His hands tremble but it’s different now, because he’s not scared but furious. The anger is rising, growing, swallowing him whole. He’s fucking pissed, tired and hurt. And he just— he just wants to go away.

“What a load of bullshit.” James hisses, getting up. He forgets about his knee and has to balance himself on the couch’s back. At the same time Steve is there, trying to help him, but he bats him away. Steve looks at him, shocked and hurt. James doesn’t feel like caring about that. “Why did you came back?” he asks, in a kind of poison he never used with Steve before, “Why the fuck did you came back if I was supposed to live a different life?”

Steve looks away, blinks and maybe James isn’t meant to see the two small tears that track down the corner of his eyes, but he sees it anyway. When Steve turns back his gaze is piercing, unwavering. “Because I missed you.” he says, steady.

And— and James feels like laughing, like— “Just, just tell me the fucking truth, would you? For a change!” he shouts.

“It is the truth,” Steve says, voice breaking, “I just wanted to see you and, and once I saw you I couldn’t leave. I didn’t mean for anything to happen, I-”

“I don’t believe it.” James cut him, ice in his voice, “How am I supposed to believe all of that?”

“Buck-”

“No, no.” He growls, tearing the ice packs from his knee and limping to the door, “I’m fucking done here.”

“Bucky,” Steve gets up, but doesn't come close, seems to frightened for that. “Where are you going? It’s not safe, you have to-”

“I don’t fucking care!” James explodes, and yanks the door open. He looks back and he— fuck if he doesn't linger. He stares at Steve, a Steve that's not his anymore, heart breaking, but hoping that his eyes conceive the pure ire boiling inside his veins.  “Stay the fuck away from me.”

And he goes, not knowing where.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve leaves Natasha’s phone on her stretched hand and tries to tamper the sharp sadness filling his bones. The soreness in his body is meaningless, small, in front of how much it hurt when Bucky left. He had cried like a child the second the door closed, but when Natasha came from whenever she was hiding, he composed himself. It's his own doing, it's his own damn fault, and he doesn't deserve any kind of solace. He deserves to swallow his cry and he deserves to be alone when he can't do it any longer.

Somehow discovering the woman he had met before was Bucky's friend doesn't make him surprised. It should, but he doesn't seem capable of that. They had talked for a while and it makes sense that SHIELD wouldn't stop keeping tabs on Bucky. And she had been gentle enough all along, hearing him talk and then lending him a secure phone, a gentleness he can't understand because he hurt Bucky so bad, and maybe it's her job, but she's Bucky friend too.

“Thank you." he says, and he sounds steady enough, "She'll be here soon.”

Natasha just looks at him and he feels weirdly exposed. He fiddles, waits for something; a threat, a warning. But, “Take care.” is what she says. And she smiles at his obvious confusion, a small thing that pulls one corner of her mouth. He'd appreciate her charm if his chest didn't feel so heavy.

“Yeah,” he looks at the door, the same Bucky went away and feels like he's dying a little. He swallows painfully, “You'll look out for him, right?”

“Don’t worry.” She says, and it's as good as graved in stone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve looks at his small bag over the bed, the one that Sharon had put all the things she collected from Bucky's house. He looks at his backpack where he stuffed his new passport, money and ID, he looks at his clothes, checking for anything out of place. He looks anywhere but where Sharon is, sitting on the corner, eyes full of a sympathy he does not deserve.

“Did you at least found what you were looking for?” She says, toned in a sadness he’d rather not listen.

“No,” Steve blinks, ignoring how his eyes are suddenly stinging, and breathes slowly. "No," he repeats, “It wasn’t there.”

 

 

 

 


	5. ATONEMENT

 

 

* * *

* * *

 

 

James tries to remember but he can’t recall how he ended up at his house. He knows he walked. The burning anger had withered and withered at each step he took and he just felt— he just—

He has those flashes, pictures of him passing through streets suspended with morning dew. He knows he stopped somewhere. He watched the sky turning colors, changing and growing in itself, and he breathed the damp air that fogged the city, polluted and heavy. He knows at some point he thought _I can never go home._ He can’t go back to what he was, the life he had, he couldn’t— he would never be what he was, and he stood there so devastated, so petrified for all the things he lost in a blink of hours. He mourned a person he liked, a life he was happy with. He’d never go back.

He knows at some point people started to fill the streets, he has the perception of some of them bumping on him, he senses the sun growing brighter, but not much. It’s all very hazy, as if he's trying to remember a dream. And the truth is, he doesn’t even know if those things, those images, are real. It’s the same doubt he had about his memories of so many things, but now it’s transferred to the present, to everything in front of him. It’s eating him, and he feeds it, because that doubt— that doubt right there is the only thing making sense right now.

He now sees himself in his room. The curtains are pulled and although there’s light coming through, it's not much. It’s weird, it feels weird, fake. He doesn’t know how long he has been sitting in the bed, mind blank, not feeling, not thinking. Just sitting. It's a new kind of detachment he's never felt before. There’s a voice in the back of his skull, distant and sounding like Natasha, and it says he’s in a state of emotional shock, that he has to work through it, do something, or he’ll be stuck like that. But the voice passes and drifts, like a ball rolling down the hill that you just stay there and watch. He doesn’t know why he can’t, though, just stay there watching the ball rolling and going; he doesn’t know why he should try and stop it. Right now he just wishes he could forget it all again, wished his brain would just wipe itself out again.

He feels fingers wiping his cheeks and he startles. It’s an effort to fight how his eyes are unfocused but he blinks, and blinks, and Natasha is right there, standing between his parted knees. She looks down at him, green eyes shining with a liquid layer and he sees it, but doesn’t really register it, and maybe that’s why it doesn’t make him surprised. He does think something is weird, though, deep in his chest. He had never seen Natasha tearing up before.

Natasha takes his face into her small, strong hands and her thumbs are brushing more wet tracks away. He doesn’t feel like he’s crying, but now he thinks he is. He tries to pay attention to her eyes, but his focus is coming and going and he can’t control it. There’s someone making sounds, ugly sobbing sounds. He doesn’t know if it’s him, but it's not Natasha either. After a while she brings his face to her belly, presses there, and he feels a deep pang of gratitude for having somewhere to hide. He buries himself there, and he doesn’t know when he started to hold her, but he feels himself squeezing her frame, hard, even when she moves.

“James.” he hears her raspy, familiar voice, but it’s far away. His ears and mouth are filled with cotton balls and he can’t answer. Natasha shifts and now her voice sounds closer, coming directly outside his ear and flowing through his brain.  “I know you’re processing a lot of things right now,” she says, calmly, gentle, “I know it’s hard.” and she pauses. He doesn’t know if she’s waiting for something, doesn’t know if it’s the end of what she wanted to tell, but he doesn’t move an inch.

He feels a hand on his back, moving slowly in circles, “Breathe,” she says, “You’re going to find your feet again. It’ll be okay.” And he wants to believe her, he’d give anything that’s left in him to believe her, but he can’t. Right now he just holds her and gives her his blind trust—  he trusts she’s telling the truth and that’s someday, some time, it’ll feel like a truth.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“No signs yet.” Natasha says. She keeps the phone pressed against her shoulder and ear, just because speaker mode annoys her. She’s using the same branch of free time to answer Steve's call and color her nails with deep red, because with things exploding and crap coming up the surface, she barely had the proper time to take care of herself. And it’s something she won’t give up, her sense of self-care, that is, because it’s how she centers herself. Painting nails is almost like meditation.

“It’s been a week.” Steve says, and he tries, but Natasha sees the fissures in his calm voice, knows he’s nervous about the possibility of them coming for Bucky when they least expect. She doesn’t dismiss his worry, because that would be a shitty thing to do and she knows the feeling; she’s very intimate with this brand of paranoia that comes along the territory they're in. That’s part of why, when Steve asked if he could keep contact with her, she said yes.

The other part is- oh, well.

There’s a silence over the line, broke just by brushes of exhales, but Natasha waits, already knowing what will come next.

“How,” Steve clears his throat, tries again, “how is he?” he finally asks, voice sounding small and quiet.

“He's quiet, mostly. I was with him until I was sure he was functional again,” She says, while finishing the last strokes of nail polish on her thumb. She puts her right feet down and get the left up on the border of the coffee table, starting to paint it. “It took some days, but he’s better. He’s not going out, but he’s working in his office again.”

“Yeah? He’s-?” And Steve appears to physically stop himself from asking more. She hears the huff of a deep exhale through the speaker, “Okay,” he says, and repeats, “Okay. That’s good.”

Natasha rolls her eyes so hard she hopes Steve can sense it over the phone. She has been holding the urge to tell him what to do, because in Steve’s position it’s the last thing she’d want to, but she can’t _not_ give him a piece of her mind, especially because she’s the one dealing with the aftermath of what happened. She feels it’s within her rights to call him on his crap.

“Look,” she makes her tone as bullshit cutting as possible, which is a damned lot, “You’re doing this to punish yourself, I get it, but you don’t get to hurt him and run away. That’s not how it works.”

“He doesn’t want to see me anymore, Natasha. He said-”

“He’s confused and hurt and you can’t leave him like that.” She cuts, and she feels a sudden urge to crack Steve’s skull to see if his stubbornness gets weaker. Steve is in luck, though, because Natasha is in between self-care rituals and she’s relaxed enough she won’t actually do it later.

“It’s better if I stay away from him,” Steve’s voice cracks a little and Natasha tries to avoid feeding the twitch of sympathy at that, because she can’t agree with Steve’s sad party and make him see how wrong he is at the same time, “I brought this whole mess and he- he didn’t deserve it, any of it.”

“Exactly,” she doesn’t have to raise her voice to sound impatient, “You brought this mess. Fix it.”

Steve stretches the silence and Natasha focuses on the void space, but can’t listen to anything for a while, not even clouds of breath. She knows Steve hadn’t hang up, though, and just waits again. She finishes painting her left feet and lets it fall on the floor, caps the nail polish and goes through her collection. She wants to paint her hands with a different color.

“I’m sorry, I can’t.” Steve says at least, quietly, “Thank you for telling me know how things are going. Can I call you again?” he asks, meek, as if he thinks she’ll tell him no just because he’s not agreeing with her. She’s not that kind of person.

“You may.” she says, and then ends the call, tossing her phone aside. She fishes out a nail polish that’s called Forever Yummy to use on her hands. She thinks it’s amusing.

 

 

* * *

 

 

James takes a long sip of his coffee while crossing the penultimate name on the list. He feels like the only thing keeping him functional is coffee, because he can't sleep right, can't get deep, no matter what he does— but at what price. He constantly feels jittery and twitchy, it's annoying but the other option is becoming a zombie; can't feel awake but can't fall asleep either.

He grabs his phone, and punches the numbers in. By the time someone picks up, his cup is already empty.

“Mr. Wolt, this is James Barnes speaking.” He licks his lips and waits for the echoed greeting through the line. He then goes on in the same phrase he had been repeating for almost the whole day. “Due to personal problems, I’m sorry to tell you I won’t be doing your project. I can recommend a couple of professionals, if you like, to replace me— Yes, they are good. I trust them. Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll send you their contacts through e-mail. Thank you for understanding.”

James puts the speaker down and rubs his face on his hands, catching a deep breath. He waits a second, breathes some more. He then looks at his list and crosses the last name.

 

 

* * *

 

 

James didn’t know how or if Steve had entered the house without him knowing, but all of his things are gone.  

He had looked all over the place and found no trace Steve had been living there for the past nine months. Nine months and it— it all just seemed to had vanished along Steve’s presence. It’s still hard to look at the empty drawers, at the empty kitchen, at the empty bed. He realizes he’s alone, he understands it, but sometimes he feels like he’s just on stand-by, just waiting and Steve will come back and— and it’ll be okay.

The details of that night are fuzzy. He remembers the sum of it all, the important bits, the bits that hurt more, but the peculiarities are lost on him. He knows he said things, he knows he screamed and that he had wished so much just to run away from what happened he had told Steve to go away. He can’t blame his past-self for that, but he— he can’t agree with him either.

He misses Steve, like a deep cut that keeps open, bleeding through him, through where he is and what he’s doing. He misses him, and there’s a part of him that thinks he’d feel better if Steve had stayed, if he’d been there to go through things with him. It’s unfair, thinking that Steve should have stayed when he knows back then James had hated Steve, that he had wanted him just go and stay gone, because Steve is the kind of person that would respect that.

He also knows Steve is stubborn and would stay if he thought it was the right thing to do, and his reaction played a big part on Steve thinking it’s better like that, being and staying away. A part of his brain keeps telling him he isn’t the one to blame in this whole mess, that he didn’t know anything, but it started to sound like he's just trying to justify his explosion and sooth the pang of guilt and loneliness he feels every time he looks at the empty house.

James bows with the weight of a mistake he doesn’t know how he can fix, but most of all, he feels the sting of knowing he’d do it again, that if he could go back he wouldn’t know how to stop himself from making it in the first place.

He’s very aware he isn’t the poster boy for emotional wisdom, and that even if in all versions he played in his head he could see web of lies, how Steve played him— but behind that, in the core of their time together, he sees the smiles at morning, how he tasted after coffee, the warmth of Steve's skin and his whispered sweet things. James isn’t a spy, an agent, or whatever the hell Steve is, but he doesn’t think anyone could fake things like that, not all the time and not that real.

When he starts to think about it, just having another look at the right angles, he can see all pieces clicking together.

The way Steve looked at him. The way he held him sometimes as if he was afraid everything was going to disappear. Steve’s caresses, the faraway look he’d have, the weight of his adoration. Steve wasn’t lying about that all and it hurts, it hurts knowing that and not knowing what he could have done differently to take a different road, to another ending.

“ _Do you think is possible,”_ Steve had asked, “ _to fall in love with someone after living with them for a while?_ ” and James no longer thinks Steve was talking about the months that had passed, rather a time James has no recollection for.

 _“I just want to be with you.”_ Steve had said, and James—

All those pieces scattered since he first laid eyes on Steve, all of those parts digging into his heart painfully. How could he not know? How could he know? He tried, he tried so hard but he couldn’t and he can’t remember anything.

He has questions, innumerous of them, and he wants answers. But more than any of it, he wants just to see Steve again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It isn’t the first time James is examining the box. He kept it tucked in a drawer when Steve gave it to him, but now it’s always at sight, its contents scattered over the table. The books are journals with nothing but recipes scribbled in it. The postcards have no words written. The pen-drive has a password he still can’t guess. And that’s why he’s sure whatever he’s looking for is inside it.

He’d thought about asking Natasha’s help, of course, but she— she had already done so much. He doesn’t like to think where he’d be if it wasn’t for her, he doesn’t know what state he’d be now if she hadn’t took care of him. He thinks he has to do it by himself now, as dumb as that sounds. It’s something he has to do for himself.

James had lost the count of time he passed in front of his computer, bubbling in frustration every time he typed something and a square popped open with an error message. And yet he can’t seem to give up.

“Think, think, think,” James mumbles, redirecting the violent twitch in his hands to pull his hair, wishing the sting of pain could make him think clearly.

What kind of code a person that doesn’t remember a thing about their past could crack? Rebecca must have thought of something obvious, something that didn’t change in the middle of all this mess. What was he missing? James exhales loudly and grabs the journal again, passing through the pages with a rudeness that was inevitable for the levels of frustration he built.

“Fuck, if-” if only he could ask for Steve’s help.

Steve. _Steve._ James frowns and stops, looking around. His sister had helped Steve, Steve said so. They all had. Steve was the only thing connecting him to a past he doesn’t know—

It's a good guess as any.

James rubs his face and takes a deep breath, tries not to get his hopes up. He stares at the screen for a moment and then carefully types S-T-E-V-E, presses _enter._ His heart is almost climbing through his throat while he glares at the circle loading in an infinite uroboros. Then the window blinks open.

“Fuck,” He curses, knees weak even if he’s sitting already. James can’t help the fine tremble in his hand when he stares at two documents simply named as FILE_1 and FILE_2. Then he takes a deep breath and starts to read.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Steve is climbing up the station when he feels his phone buzz inside his jacket. He reaches the top of the stairs and slips through the flow of people, stepping outside. He sighs at the cold blow of wind around him and the fray rays of sun that can't warm it. It lifts a dust in his chest, a kind of melancholy he has no cure for. He ignores it.

He starts to walk and catches his reflection on glasses and, well, he’s not too disheveled and he’s past caring about the state of his hair, since the rain earlier had made it stick up in a very annoying way. It’s a good thing his job today is supposed to be easy. He just wants to get to the HQ and sleep.

Steve only grabs his phone when he’s in a relatively less crowded situation, to read a text that only says _good luck._ It’s from a blocked number, which can only mean it’s from Natasha, but he frowns anyway, confused. Good luck? With what? It’s not surprising she knows he’s in the country again, even if he had arrived not even four days ago, but it leaves him uneasy and alert, seeing she knows something it’s about to happen that he needs a good luck wish for.

They had built a weird kind of friendship since— since that night, and they hadn't kept contact in the last year, but he’d never forget the feeling she’s always one step ahead of him and amused he’s running to catch up. She enjoys being cryptic, he remembers that clearly, and it’s not a cruel thing, but it’s frustrating sometimes. It’s just Steve is so used to Sharon, and Sharon is very straightforward and clear.

Anyhow, he texts _Thanks, but what for?_ but Natasha doesn’t answer back even after some minutes. and he gives up, stuffing his phone back in his pants.

His meeting is in thirty minutes and it’s not a lot of time to kill. There were times he had to wait hours in a strange city, sometimes days. He's used to carrying books and wandering around stores to distract himself as much as dismiss any suspicion about his whereabouts, but he hadn’t been in Washington for a long time and he'll take the time just to walk.

Just being here, in the same country as Bucky again (not even in the same city) wakes something in his chest. Two years, and he’s used to ignore the heavy weight sitting over his chest every time he remembers, every time he wakes alone. He’s used to working with it, around it even, because no matter what he does he can’t make it go away. He tried, he had been trying to get over it since he was a teenager, and by now he knows there’s no way to just forget. He was used to just lay in the dark every night and the tears would come, and he'd allow himself those moments because everything in his life was a constant, blaring reminder of all he could have and all he lost.

It isn’t like that now, not anymore, at least not in the past months. It doesn’t feel like an open wound bleeding and growing bigger every living minute, lacerating him from inside out and leaving him open and desperate collecting his pieces. No, now it seems a constant, quiet pain, a piece in the deck of cards made of all the sadness that comes with being alive.

As soon as reaches the King’s Cake entry, his phone buzzes again. He’s surprised to see Natasha’s answer, but all he gets is: _You’ll see._ Steve blinks and then mentally shrugs. He doesn’t have the time to pry more right now.

He has a description of the agent in his head, dark hair and blue eyes, wearing a black coat and reading glasses, so Steve pulls the door open and hears a real-life bell above his head. He looks up and it’s gold and small, the past cliché of cafés that had been rare nowadays, with all the big chains of coffee shops popping here and there.

He’s greeted by the smell of cinnamon and bread, but what catches his eyes is the big display of cakes right in the counter. He wishes at the end he can buy one piece, even to go.

The shop is fairly empty, and as he walks between the tables only two are occupied by one person; and only one of them has dark hair. The shape of the man’s shoulders is broad and relaxed, and Steve can’t help the spark of familiarity and longing that comes alive and it feels like his stomach is full of ice rocks. It seems too much like—

The man turns in his chair and his eyes zeroes in Steve’s. Grey blues, clear, somehow outstanding even more with the frame of his glasses and the darkness of his clothes. His hair is longer, falling to the sides of his handsome face in a charming way, but it’s undoubtedly him.

“Bucky…” Steve hears the name roll off his lips against his will. His feet won’t obey him and he’s frozen on the spot. For the time stretching, blood and electricity coming and going pumping his body and forgetting to fuel his mind to any coherency, Steve doesn’t feel like he can move, like he can think.

In the back of his skull he hears _now you know what Natasha meant_ but it’s irrelevant. The understanding doesn’t bring sense to any of it. Bucky’s here in the place of specialist he was supposed to meet and it’s almost like someone had planned a trap so he wouldn’t have a chance of running away. He doesn’t know if he’d do it, running away knowing Bucky was waiting for him somewhere, wanting to see him, but he’s somehow glad he doesn’t have to make the choice.

Of all the things he wished, of all the scenes he pictured lying in the dark and pretending to sleep, finding Bucky again never went like that.

“Aren’t you going to seat?” Bucky’s voice holds an amusement that at first glance is nothing but that, but Steve can see the anxiety in his eyes, can sense the tension hiding in, lurking through his shoulders and slowly spreading to his posture. And Steve has nowhere to put his worry with his walls crumbling down; he's transparent, defenseless.

It had been so long, too long since he last heard him, and just the tune of his voice is enough to put leaks along the barriers Steve had held over the endless sadness of having him and losing him all over again. He can feel them dusting on the ground, hear the pieces of his broken heart clacking.

Bucky seems to notice Steve’s shock, how can’t he, but doesn’t get up. He uses his feet to pull out the chair in front of him and he curls his lips in a smile and even if it’s bathed in nervousness. Steve missed it so much he feel like he’s going to cry.

“Come on, Steve.” Bucky says, gentle.

Steve breathes in, deeply, and gathers enough control to move but not to avoid the pressure in his throat or the burn in his eyes. Four steps ahead he stops beside the chair and sits down, grateful for the support for his weakened knees. Steve takes his backpack off and clutches it at his chest, like a child hugging his bear for comfort, and he, he looks at Bucky, just— just looks and he can’t be embarrassed about the wavering focus of his sigh, a tell-tale of the water pooling at his eyes. He’s so beautiful under the play of lights, even if up close Steve can see the signs of exhaustion; the dark circles, the more pronounced shape of his cheekbones and jaw.

“Why?” Steve asks in a single breath.

Bucky looks down at his hands over the table, but it’s a very quick thing. He’s soon staring at Steve again and Steve can see how his eyes are moving around, as if taking in all the details he can get, as if he had missed Steve as well.

“We have a lot to talk,” Bucky says, calmly, and it’s not really an answer for Steve’s question, but he gets it. It feels like he’s asking Steve to stay and Steve doesn’t even think about not doing so.

“Yes.” Steve says, and the word comes out heavy with a sadness that’s impossible to hide quick enough. The hurt in his chest is swelling, making his breath caught up, only for thinking about seeing Bucky and seeing him leave again after talking.

“We’ll talk about back then, but also about- about after,” Bucky says as if he can read Steve’s mind and Steve can’t help the pure bliss of relief, because maybe it means Bucky will let Steve see him again. He clings to this thought like it’s a lifeline.

“But not here.” Steve asks, because he doesn't want to have this kind of conversation in a place HQ has its eyes on, and Bucky nods.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They walked in silence, carrying twins cups of coffee. Bucky’s steps were sure, as if he already knew where they're supposed to go, and Steve could only follow. They reached a park, almost void of people bearing the low temperature, and sat down. Steve had tried to respect Bucky’s space, if he still wanted some, but Bucky had sat closer enough to press their sides together in a long warm line from shoulders to knees. He loved it, felt like he'd never want to get up.

The silence was still there now, between sips of coffee and people watching, and it seemes like so many things floated between them, waiting to be spoken, but neither knew where to start.

“Your hair,” Steve says, the first thing to break the quiet, when he’s sure he can get his voice to work properly again, “You let it grow. I was surprised.” His fingers flex around his cup with how much he wants to touch it. Bucky just smiles, shrugging one shoulder as if it doesn’t matter and doesn’t offer much about that. “How long…?” Steve can’t finish the phrase but he’s sure Bucky will understand what he's asking, and it’s not about his choice of haircut.

“Right after you left.” Bucky answers and despite how harsh those words could sound, he says with a sad softness that gives enough reassurance of a subject Bucky no longer feels anger about. “I found things on the pen-drive, and Nat said I should destroy or hide it and move out, but I didn’t want to leave in case you came back.”

It stings to think about Bucky waiting for him, guarding a house and the empty spaces left behind fueled by an empty hope, and he doesn’t know how to thank him, for not hating him after all, for waiting and forgiving. He doesn't have the words. He just presses himself harder against Bucky’s side, and he’d touch him, hug him, but he feels oddly timid and can't take the risk of being rejected.

“You found things about Erkine’s job?” Steve asks, because he can’t help his surprise. He thought everything had been destroyed or lost, and he hopes it is in some place no one can use it to do harm.

Bucky just nods, sighs quietly. “SHIELD wanted it, and I gave to them because after a while I had to move out.”

“Why?” Steve asks, heart pained. He loved Bucky’s house, maybe because it had Bucky written in every corner of it. All those precious memories he has, of just the two of them, revolve around that house and he felt oddly connected to it; it was such a nice place.

“I left my job, so I couldn’t afford to stay there.” He says, shrugging again, like it doesn’t matter, and takes a sip of his drink. “It felt like I was living a- a lie, you know? So I left it. I kept thinking what kind of thing I should do, what I was meant to do and- and it didn’t feel like staying was the right thing.”

“You’re- you’re working for SHIELD now?” Steve asks, almost fearing the answer.

“Fuck no,” And Bucky chuckles, turns a little to look at Steve, and his heart debates itself, wild, with the sight of his little smile and cold pink cheeks. God, he's so beautiful. “I have zero talent to be a, a spy or whatever. But they said if I gave those things to them, they’d put me in a safe place, help me to start things over again. I didn’t want to go, but I- it felt like my only choice. They didn’t want to tell me how to find you, though, said it wasn’t safe, to soon and all that.”

“I’m sorry.” Steve hears his own voice small, sad, and right in that moment he can’t help it, reaches to hold Bucky’s hand, and feels the relief when not only Bucky accepts his touch, but holds him back, strong and sure. “So, how…?”

“What do you think?” Bucky’s says, and there’s amusement in his voice, “Nat, of course. By then more than a year had passed and I kind of had- I didn’t think you’d come back. So I accepted their offer, moved out, I asked for her help to find you. It took some time but she did. You were out of the country, though, and we had to wait.”

“So she tricked them into thinking I was going to meet a contractor?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky shrugs, laughs a little, “She just said the time, the place, what should I wear. I didn’t even ask, you guys have so many weird rituals.”

Steve laughs, quietly, squeezes Bucky’s hand for a moment. “Yeah,” and Bucky looks at him, but this time he keeps looking, face shifting and eyes clouding, and Steve sees there a yearning, a loneliness, that pierces him through his chest.

“I missed you.” Bucky whispers and Steve gasps, feels his eyes watering in a speed that’s absurd, almost irreal. He doesn’t know how to put into words how much he missed Bucky back, doesn’t have the power to voice it right. He brings Bucky’s hand to his mouth, pressing a slow kiss to its back, and tries to hold back his tears, tries not breaking apart because they still have much to talk.

It had been almost unbearably hard before, to have so many secrets from Bucky, to lie through his teeth as if it was the easiest thing in the world, but he did it and swallowed the pain as medicine if that meant keeping Bucky safe. And he had failed at that, immensely. What good all of those secrets had done but to delay the inevitable? Steve couldn’t hold the truth any longer. If he had any shot at having Bucky in his life again, if he had a chance of being truly forgiven, he'd owe Bucky all of it, everything.

“Most of what I know, I read after- after.” Steve starts after a moment bracing himself, letting his eyes roam to his shoes. “Dr. Erskine worked with a big team on a project that wanted to cure diseases and heal people with injuries faster, but he was being used. He thought he was- he was doing good for people, but the guys he worked for used his results to- to other purposes.”

He licks his lips and can’t look away from his feet, even if the unfocused sight of the ground framed by his boots took him deeper in memories. “I was took in when I was seven," Steve goes on, "I remember being sick all the time then, almost died once or twice. And I had no one in the world. I,” he swallows in a loud click, “I didn’t know that back then, but there was a line of kids that died along the tests. But I survived. They didn’t know why or how, and the plan was to make more tests on me, to know how I was different from all the other dead kids. Dr. Erskine discovered what was happening and I don’t know exactly how things went down, but they tried to- well, they couldn’t go on without him, he was the head of the project, so they started threats and- and things like that.”

Steve pecks at his side just to check if Bucky was still paying attention— he was, silent and listening, unwavering gaze over Steve, a gaze Steve himself couldn’t hold.

“I was twelve then,” He swallows again, because the pressure in his throat is growing harder and harder and his eyes stinging, “Dr. Erskine made a plan to take me away and run. Your sister worked with him, and he told me he asked for her help and she contacted you. You were a cop, a good one. That’s why she was sure you’d help even if they were planning to commit felonies. They used their access to start a fire. He just wanted to burn down the records and bury the research, make a distraction so you could get me out, but- but it got out of control.” He stops, closes his eyes, flashing with memories that seems so fresh and deep, that still brought him chills and made him wake up thinking he was going to die burning and breathless. He can remember the smoke curling inside his lungs and his his pants wet and think _I’m going to die, I’m going to die—_

“I remember seeing your eyes behind the mask and,” Steve whispers and laughed hollowly, wetly,  “and you said everything was going to be okay. A lot of people told me that. When I was sick, when I was hurting, when I was being- being treated and tested and,” he can’t make himself say that it felt  much more like torture, “Sometimes when I was- when I was crying they told me it was going to be okay, but when you said it,” he sniffs, wipes his teary cheek, “I finally believed it.”

Steve feels his hand being covered by both of Bucky's and he takes it as the line holding his safety, squeezes hard, taking a deep breath. “And it was true for a long while. We were okay.” He goes on, “We lived together and your sister wasn’t much around, but you were always with me.”

The silence falls between them, and it isn’t uncomfortable as much as was noticeable, glaring. Steve takes this time to collect himself, find his feet again, and when he looks at Bucky again, Bucky sighs, bringing Steve’s fingers to his lap, rubbing his cold fingers and caressing.

“You only changed your last name. Why?” Bucky asks after a while.

That was an easy answer, and it brings a smile to his face. “They called me by a serial number since I got there and- and five years later I- I had forgot that I even had a name once. You called me Steve. So I can’t think of myself as anything else.” Steve licks his lips and squeezes Bucky’s hand, firm. “It was pretty hard on us, when they got our track and- and tried to caught you. Your car crashed and you were brain dead. Your sister and I, we begged Abraham to help you. He said it was too dangerous, that he had limited resources and his notes were almost all lost, that it could all go horribly wrong. But, but then he did it and you woke up.”

“That’s why I’m alive.” James says, not a question.

“Yes. And losing your memories was- was a thing we never predicted. You looked straight at me and you asked me who was I and I- and it hurt but it was a small price to pay for seeing you alive and awake and-” he cuts himself, because he feels his voice is getting too wobbly and too hurried to be understood, and Bucky gives him some more time, following the wet tracks in Steve’s cheeks with careful fingers.

“Your sister took it as her job to move you out of it, she said she wasn’t going to risk you anymore. I- I didn’t wanted you to go, I asked her so many times, I begged. But in the end,” he’s shaking, he can feel it and can’t stop it, with the flashes of that day burning behind his eyelids. The blood and the cries and- He feels Bucky squeezing his hand and running circles on his back and he forces himself to take deep breaths and go on, “In the end Dr. Erskine was killed and they almost caught us. So your sister made contact with SHIELD, offered what was left of the research in trade of help. They gave you a new identity while you were recovering and gave us shelter. I haven’t seen her since then, since they started training me to be one of them. She was gone and she never said where they hid you.”

“Then, how…?” Bucky asks, voice quiet, as if not wanting to distress Steve more. But this is a good part of the story. A part he felt hope again after such a long time without it.

“I wasn’t supposed to know anything about you.” Steve mumbles, can’t help but press himself to the warm line of Bucky at his side. “The years passed and I didn’t have clearance even to know if you were still alive. But then, then one day I came back from a mission and there was a box, no name or address, just sitting at my bed. That box I gave you. It had a letter inside and she wrote all about you, where you lived, how you were. I thought it was a lie, but I couldn’t- I had to check it, had to know. I knew I couldn’t tell anyone I was going to find you so I forced them to transfer me.”

“Forced?” Bucky asks, and his voice is closer, as if he’s leaning towards Steve, but Steve doesn’t risk to look, doesn’t know how Bucky will react knowing what kind of job he did.

“Yeah,” he says, “As soon as I was eighteen they put me on a Strike team. It’s kind of- of a task force? It was hard because we didn’t know things but we had to do stuff anyway and- yeah.” He clears his throat, tries to sound stronger. “I know they wouldn’t just let me change jobs, but Sharon helped me. We met in training but she worked in the intel branch. I don’t know how but she got her boss believing he needed me in his team and I got transferred.”

“Seriously?” Bucky asks, a little incredulity clear in his voice, and Steve can understand. Sharon sometimes has a way of having what she wants that’s kind of  frightening.

“Yeah,” he says between a little wet laugh, “With intel it's easier to stay in the country longer and to have more down time. Her rank is higher than mine, so she took me under her wing as her trainee and we started working together. When we got the chance to go to NY I couldn’t lose it. I was supposed to be stationed with her  but I went to your place instead. I just- I just wanted to check on you. Stay a few days and then say I found a place to live for my own, leave you to your life, but,” Steve stops and gulps, scrubbing his cheeks clean. “When I saw you, I couldn’t- I couldn't leave.”

He feels the press of Bucky’s lips on his temple and he closes his eyes, feels like he just entered a new reality where he gets to have his kisses again, like he’s floating, then Bucky asks, “So why did you?” and Steve's stomach falls.

“I ruined so many lives.” He says, feeling the shame in his small voice, “Erskine, Rebecca. Then you.” He pushes his face in his hand, drags it through his hair, cup of coffee long forgotten at his side. “In the end it was all because of me. I had to leave you alone before I got you killed too.”

Steve hears Bucky’s sigh, a warmth crossing his shoulders that comes with Bucky’s hand sliding across them to pull Steve against him, holding him against his chest.

“You’re wrong,” Bucky says and shushes Steve when he tries to protest, “The people trying to get you, they ruined lives, not you. You’re a victim, and you don’t deserve to be alone because of that. My sister knew it and I know it. You have to know it too.”

“Bucky-”

“I don’t want ever that, you alone, thinking it’s all your fault.” he goes on, gently interrupting his protest, “I want to be with you.”

Steve lets himself melt against Bucky, hiding himself on the soft crook of his neck and breathing in his skin, feeling things he thought he’d never be able to feel again. He can hear Bucky’s heart beating fast, can sense his chest moving at each breath, and he’s real, he’s alive. He feels more tears sliding down his cheeks, Bucky’s lips pressed on his forehead and his arms circling him, firm, and it’s so good.

“I’m working at a library now,” Bucky says, and Steve hides his wet laugh in his shoulder, “And I have a place. It’s not big. But,” he stops, and Steve feels him breathing deeply, as if gathering courage, “But I’d like if you came home with me.”

“I want to, please,” Steve manages to croak, voice heavy with his tears, and he says it quick, maybe in fear the offer would disappear suddenly, “Take me home.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
